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SPEECHES AND ADDEESSES 



CHIEFLY OX THE 



SUBJECT OF BEITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 



BY THE 



HON. THOMAS D'ARCY McGEE, M.R.I.A., 

SK OK THK MEMBERS FOR THE CITY OF MONTREAL, AND MTNISTER OF AGRICULTDRE FOR THE 
PROVINCE Ol CANADA. 




LONDON : 
CHAPMAN- AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 

1865. 



> 



M M ,^ 



LONDON : 
BRADBURY ANT) EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITES'RIARK. 



tfV» 



TO 

E. W. WATKIN, ESQ., 

MP. FOR STOCKPORT, 

.VHOSE INTIMATE CONNECTION WITH MANY GREAT ENTERPRISES 
IN WHICH THE MATERIAL FUTURE OF BRITISH- 
AMERICA IS INTERWOVEN; 

AND, STILL MORE, 

WHOSE HIGH-SPIRITED ADVOCACY OF A SOUND COLONIAL POLICY, 

BOTH IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT, HAS CONFERRED 

LASTING OBLIGATIONS UPON THESE PROVINCES, 



xb Sabxmz 



IS VERY SINCERELY AND CORDIALLY DEDICATED. 






r 



PEEFACE. 



This selection, from a large number of speeches and 
addresses, delivered dnring the past few years in the 
Canadian Parliament, or to public assemblies in the 
North- American Provinces, has been made, " at the 
request/'— to use a venerable formula — "of many 
friends." 

The only object in making public at present such a 
selection, is, to contribute something, however inconsider- 
able, to the fullest discussion of what may be called the 
British- American question. 

For the sake of convenience the speeches and 
addresses are arranged in two parts. I. Addresses 
delivered to special societies, or at popular gatherings. 
II. Speeches in the Canadian Parliament. 

This division of the matter selected was intended, in 
the first place, to aid the "home" reader, personally 
unacquainted with those Provinces, in forming a fair 
estimate of the elements which go to make up the 
aggregate of our present British- American society ; and 
in the second, to give some exemplification of the 
difficulties, local, sectional, and legislative, which the 
contemplated Confederation has had to encounter. 



VI PEEFACE. 

Wo one can be more conscious than the speaker him- 
self of the deficiencies of every kind to be found in these 
speeches ; they were sometimes made at short notice — 
sometimes ill-reported, and seldom corrected for the 
press: if, notwithstanding, they should be found to 
possess any saving interest, it can only be attributed to 
the fact that they form a tolerably consecutive running 
commentary, on the recent course of political opinion in 
the British Provinces ; on the main events of the 
American civil war, and on the new relations arising for 
the Provinces out of those events ; and, finally, on the 
efforts which have been made, especially during the 
last few years, to bring about the establishment of " a 
new Nationality," on monarchical principles, in British- 
America. 

Montreal, 
April lZth, 1865. 



CONTENTS. 



PAKT I 

ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 

PAGE 
THE LAND WE LIVE IN 1 

THE POLICY OF CONCILIATION 6 

THE BOEDER COUNTIES OP LOWER CANADA : THEIR RELATIONS 

WITH UNITED STATES 9 

CANADA'S INTEREST IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR . . . 12 

AMERICAN RELATIONS AND CANADIAN DUTIES . . . .33 

BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION 38 

CHARACTER OF CHAMPLAIN, THE FIRST CAPTAIN-GENERAL OF 
CANADA : THE FRENCH-CANADIANS UNDER FRANCE AND 
GREAT BRITAIN ... 43 

OTTAWA, THE PROBABLE CAPITAL OF AN UNITED BRITISH AMERICA 51 

THE COMMON INTERESTS OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA . . . 56 

INTERCOLONIAL RELATIONS AND THE INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY 68 

THE FUTURE OF CANADA 83 

BISHOP'S COLLEGE, LENNOXVILLE, C.E. . . . . . . ' . 93 

PROSPECTS OF THE UNION 96 

"SOME OBJECTIONS TO A CONFEDERATION OF THE PROVINCES 

CONSIDERED" 100 

THE CAUSE OF THE QUEBEC CONFERENCE 108 

GROWTH OF MONTREAL, AND ITS REQUIREMENTS . . . . 114 

THE GERMANS IN CANADA 117 

SPEECH AT COOKSHIRE, COUNTY OF COMPTON> DECEMBER 22, 1864 122 

THE IRISH IN CANADA ; THE IMPORTATION OF FENIANISM . 141 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PART II. 

SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 

PAGE 

"the double majority" .149 

constitutional difficulties between uppee and lower 

CANADA 154 

REPRESENTATION BY POPULATION 177 

CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN UPPER AND LOWER 

CANADA 182 

CANADIAN DEFENCES 199 

REPRESENTATION BY POPULATION 506 

EMIGRATION AND COLONISATION 210 

INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY DIPLOMACY 232 

STATE OF THE COUNTRY : PUBLIC DEFENCES .... 241 

INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY DIPLOMACY 251 

SPEECH ON MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO HER MAJESTY IN 

FAVOUR OF CONFEDERATION 261 



PAET I. 

ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC 
OCCASIONS. 



THE LAND WE LIVE IN. 

Address to the "New England Society op Montreal, on the 
Anniversary of the Landing op the Pilgrims," 22nd December, 
1860. 

Mr. McGee : Mr, President, Ladies and Gentlemen, — 
As one of the Bepresentatives of the city of Montreal, I 
feel it to be an act of duty, and a most agreeable duty it is, 
to attend the re-unions of our various National Societies, 
and to contribute anything in my power to their gratifica- 
tion. My respect for all these Societies, and my own 
sense of what is decorous and fit to be said, have, I hope, 
always confined me to the proprieties of such occasions; 
but still, if I speak at all, I must speak with freedom, and 
free speech, I trust, will never be asserted in vain among a 
Society composed of the men of New England and their 
descendants. I congratulate you and the Society over 
which you preside, Mr. President, on the recurrence of 
your favourite anniversary, and not only for your own 
gratification as our fellow-citizens of Montreal, but in the 
best interests of all humanity in the New World, let us 
join in hope that not only the sons of New England, but 
Americans from all other States settled amongst us, will 
long be able to join harmoniously in the celebration of the 
arrival of the first ship-load of emigrants in Massachusetts 
Bay on this day, 240 years ago ; — a ship which wafted over 

B 



2 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

the sea as large a cargo of the seeds of a new civilisation 
as any ship ever did, since the famous voyage recorded in 
the legends of the Greeks. It is rather a hard task this 
you have set me, Mr. President, of extolling the excellen- 
cies of " the land we live in " — that is, praising ourselves 
— especially at this particular season of the year. If it 
were mid-summer instead of mid-winter, when our rapids 
are flashing, and our glorious river sings its triumphal 
song from Ontario to the Ocean — when the northern sum- 
mer, like the resurrection of the just, clothes every linea- 
ment of the landscape in beauty and serenity — it might 
be easy to say fine things for ourselves, without conflicting 
with the evidence of our senses. But to eulogise Canada 
about Christmas time requires a patriotism akin to the 
Laplander, when, luxuriating in his train oil, he declares 
that " there is no land like Lapland under the sun." Our 
consolation, however, is that all the snows of the season 
fall upon our soil for wise and Providential purposes. 
The great workman, Jack Frost, wraps the ploughed land 
in a warm covering, preserving the late sown wheat for the 
first ripening influence of the spring. He macadamizes 
roads and bridges, brooks and rivers, better than could the 
manual labour of 100,000 workmen. He forms and lubri- 
cates the track through the wilderness by which those 
sailors of the forest — the lumbermen — are enabled to draw 
down the annual supply of one of our chief staples, to the 
margins of frozen rivers, which are to bear their rafts to 
Quebec, at the first opening of the navigation. This 
climate of ours, thdugh rigorous, is not unhealthful, since 
the average of human life in this Province is seven per 
cent, higher than in any other portion of North America ; 
and if the lowness of the glass does sometimes incon- 
venience individuals, we ought to be compensated and 
consoled by remembering of how much benefit these annual 
falls of snow are to the country at large. So much for our 
climatic difficulties. Let me now say a word or two on our 
geographical position. Whoever looks at the map — a good 
map is an invaluable public instructor — not such maps as 
we used to have, in which Canada was stuck away up at 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 3 

the North Pole, but such maps as have lately appeared in 
this country — will be tempted to regard the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence as the first of the Canadian Lakes, and our mag- 
nificent river as only a longer Niagara or Detroit. His 
eye will follow up through the greater part of the tidal 
volume of that river the same parallel of latitude — the 46° 
— which intersects Germany, and cuts through the British 
Channel; if he pursues that parallel, it will lead him 
to the valley of the Saskatchewan, and through the Eocky 
Mountain passes, to the rising settlements of our fellow- 
subjects on the Pacific. It will lead him through that 
most interesting country — the Red Eiver territory, 500,000 
square miles in extent, with a white population of less than 
10,000 souls; a territory which ought to be "the Out- 
West " of our youth — where American enterprise has lately 
taught us a salutary, though a rebuking lesson, for while 
we were debating about its true limits and the title by 
which it is held, they were steaming down to Fort Garry, 
with mails and merchandise from St. Paul's. The position 
of Canada is not only important in itself, but it is important 
as a Via media to the Pacific ; from a given point on our 
side of Lake Superior to navigable water on the Eraser 
Eiver has been shown to be not more than 2000 miles — 
about double the distance from Boston to Chicago. A 
railway route, with gradients not much, if at all, exceeding 
those of the Vermont Central, or the Philadelphia and Pitts- 
burg, has been traced throughout by Mr. Fleming, Mr. 
Hind, Mr. Dawson, Captain Synge, and Colonel Pailisser; 
and though neither Canada nor Columbia are able of them- 
selves to undertake the connexion, we cannot believe that 
British and American enterprise, which risked so many 
precious lives to find a practicable passage nearer to the 
Pole, will long leave untried this safest, shortest, and most 
expeditious overland North- West passage. We cannot 
despair that the dream of Jacques Cartier may yet be ful- 
filled, and the shortest route from Europe to China be 
found through the valley of the St. Lawrence. Straight 
on to the West lies Vancouver's Island, the Cuba of the 
Pacific ; a little to the North, the Amoor, which may be 

£2 



4 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

called the Amazon of the Arctic; farther off, but in a 
right line, the rich and populous Japanese group, which 
for wealth and enterprise have not been inaptly called the 
British Isles of Asia. These, Mr. President, are some of 
our general geographical advantages; there are others that 
I might refer to, but on an occasion of this kind I know 
the fewer details the better. Now, one word more as to 
our people : the decennial census to be taken next month 
will probably show us to be nearly equal in numbers to the 
six States of New England, or the great State of New 
York, deducting New York city. An element, over a third, 
but less than one-half of that total, will be found to be of 
French Canadian origin ; the remainder is made up, as the 
population of New York and New England has been, by 
British, Irish, German, and other emigrants and their 
descendants. Have we advanced materially in the ratio 
of our American neighbours ? I cannot say that we have. 
Montreal is an older city than Boston, and Kingston an 
older town than Oswego or Buffalo. Let us confess frankly 
that in many material things we are half a century behind 
the Americans, while, at the same time — not to give way 
altogether too much — let us modestly assert that we possess 
some social advantages which they, perhaps, do not. For 
example, we believed until lately — we still believe — that 
such a fiction as a slave, as one man being another man's 
chattel, was wholly unknown in Canada.* And we still 
hope that may ever continue to be our boast. In material 
progress we have something to show, and we trust to have 
more. All we need, Mr. President, mixed up and divided 
as we naturally are, is, in my humble opinion, the cultiva- 
tion of a tolerant spirit on all the delicate controversies of 
race and religion, — the maintenance of an upright public 
opinion in our politics and commerce, — the cordial en- 
couragement of every talent and every charity which 

* An allusion to the recent case of Anderson, arrested and tried in 
Upper Canada, on the charge of killing his master, while attempting to 
escape, in Missouri. He was finally acquitted by the Upper Canada Court 
of Appeal, but not until a writ of habeas corpus had been issued frtm 
the Queen's Bench, at Westminster. 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 5 

reveals itself among us, — the expansion of those narrow- 
views and small ambitions which are apt to attend upon 
Provincialism, — and with these amendments, I do think 
we might make for Christian men, desirous to bring up 
their posterity in the love and fear of God and the law, one 
of the most desirable residences in the world, of this " land 
we live in." 



THE POLICY OF CONCILIATION. 

Remarks at Montreal, March, 1861. 

In reply to the toast of his health, at a dinner given 
him by his constituents, on the eve of the session of 1861, 
Mr. McGee (after some local observations) said: The career 
I have had in Canada led me chiefly into those parts of the 
country inhabited by men who speak the English language, 
and using the opportunities which I have had between the 
time when I ceased to be a newspaper publisher to that of 
my admission as a member of the Lower Canada bar, I 
trust I have learned something which may be profitable to 
me in the position to which you elevated me on trust and 
in advance. The result of my observations, thus made, is, 
that there is nothing to be more dreaded in this country 
than feuds arising from exaggerated feelings of religion and 
nationality. On the other hand, the one thing needed for 
making Canada the happiest of homes, is to rub down all 
sharp angles, and to remove those asperities which divide 
our people on questions of origin and religious profession. 
The man who says this cannot be done consistently with 
any set of principles founded on the charity of the Gospel 
or on the right use of human reason, is a blockhead, as 
every bigot is, — while under the influence of his bigotry he 
sees no further than his nose. For a man who has grown 
to years of discretion — though some never do come to those 
years — who has not become wedded to one idea, who, like. 
Coleridge, is as ready to regulate his conduct as to set his 
watch when the parish clock declares it wrong; who is 
ready to be taught by high as well as by low, and to 
receive any stamp of truth — I may say that such a man 
will come to this conclusion : that there are in all origins 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 7 

men good, bad, and indifferent; yet for my own part, my 
experience is that in all classes the good predominate. I 
believe that there have come out of Ireland, noble as she 
is, those whom she would not recognise as her children ; 
and so with other countries celebrated for the noble cha- 
racteristics of their population as a whole. In Canada, 
with men of all origins and all kinds of culture, if we do 
not bear and forbear, if we do not get rid of old quarrels, 
but on the contrary make fresh ones, — whereas we ought to 
have lost sight of the old when we lost sight of the capes 
and headlands of the old country — if we will carefully con- 
vey across the Atlantic half-extinguished embers of strife 
in order that we may by them light up the flames of our 
inflammable forests — if each neighbour will try not only 
to nurse up old animosities, but to invent new grounds of 
hostility to his neighbour — then, gentlemen, we shall re- 
turn to what Hobbes considered the state of Nature — 1 
mean a state of war. In society we must sacrifice some- 
thing, as we do when we go through a crowd, and not 
only must we yield to old age, to the fairer and better sex, 
and to that youth which, in its weakness, is entitled to 
some of the respect which we accord to age ; but we must 
sometimes make way for men like ourselves, though we 
could prove by the most faultless syllogism our right to 
push them from the path. In his great speech respecting 
the Unitarians, Edmund Burke declared that he did not 
govern himself by abstractions or universals, and he main- 
tained in that same argument (I think) that what is not 
possible is not desirable — that the possible best is the abso- 
lute best — the best for the generation, the best for the 
man, since the shortness of life makes it impossible for him 
to achieve all that he could wish. I believe the possible 
best for us is peace and good-will. With this belief I did 
my part to heal up those feuds which prevailed in Montreal 
and westward before and at the election of 1857 ; I felt 
that some one must condone the past, and I determined, so 
far as I could be supposed to represent your principles, to 
lead the way ; I tried to allay irritated feeling, and I hope 
not altogether without success. We have a country which, 



8 BRITISH-AMEEICAN UNION. 

being the land of our choice, should also have our first 
consideration. I know, and you know, that I can never 
cease to regard with an affection which amounts almost to 
idolatry the land where I spent my best, my first years, 
where I obtained the partner of my life, and where my first- 
born saw the light. ' I cannot but regard that land even 
with increased love because she has not been prosperous. 
Yet I hold we have no right to intrude our Irish patriotism 
on this soil ; for our first duty is to the land where we live 
and have fixed our homes, and where, while we live, we must 
find the true sphere of our duties. While always ready 
therefore to say the right word, and to do the right act for 
the land of my forefathers, I am bound above all to the 
land where I reside; and especially am I bound to put 
down, so far as one humble layman can, the insensate 
spread of a strife which can only tend to prolong our period 
of Provincialism and make the country an undesirable home 
for those who would otherwise willingly cast in their lot 
among us. We have acres enough; powers mechanical 
and powers natural ; and sources of credit enough to make 
out of this Province a great nation, and, though I wish to 
commit no one to my opinion, I trust that it will not only 
be so in itself, but will one day form part of a greater 
British North American State, existing under the sanction, 
and in perpetual alliance with the Empire, under which it 
had its rise and growth. 



THE BORDER COUNTIES OF LOWER CANADA: 
THEIR RELATIONS WITH UNITED STATES. 

Remarks at a Political Pic-nic at Ormstown, county op Chateau- 
cnjAT, July I7th, 1861.* 

Mil McGee said : I am very grateful to you, rny friends, 
for your cordial reception, and to my friend, your worthy 
member (Mr. Starnes), for the flattering recommendation 
to your notice which he has just given me. I now under- 
stand, when I see him moving about among his constituents, 
one great secret of his popularity, in the unaffected friendly 
feeling with which you and he meet, and interchange 
opinions with each other. Tor myself, my friends, why 
am I here ? I answer, because you desired it, and your 
respected representative seconded the request. Being here, 
what can I say that may interest or instruct you ? Mere 
speaking, for speech-sake, I hold to be almost the lowest 
exercise of human capacity ; but if there be things to be 
said, which are at once fit for the place, the time, the audi- 
ence, and the speaker, such speech as that can never be 
superfluous or impertinent, ill-timed, or in bad taste. Two 
or three incidents occurred to my honourable friend and 
myself on our way to this place, which gave me mental 
occupation along the road, and suggested to me observa- 
tions which, with one or two others of a more general 
nature, I very gladly offer you as my mite towards the 
objects of this festival at Ormstown. The chief of these 
observations, which I shall present to you before I close, 
concerns our own social state in Lower Canada; and the 
other, to which I mean to refer in the first place, concerns 

* The period of the first battle of Bull's Run. 



10 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

our present and future relations with the Americans, your 
next-door neighbours. We stand here on the historic soil 
of Chateauguay, where De Salaberry, with his handful of 
volunteers, repulsed an army in the last war, as American 
armies were then numbered ; we are here within two hours' 
ride of the American line ; your relations and the relations 
of the adjoining counties, with our neighbours in Western 
New York, especially since the establishment of the Reci- 
procity Treaty, are of the most intimate and cordial cha- 
racter. Is it not so? Every true Canadian, every true 
American, wishes to preserve and perpetuate these peaceful 
relations. Is it not so ? Now, if this be the determination 
on both sides, there can be little possibility of a rupture, 
and I therefore entirely agree with the sentiments of those 
statesmen who think that the late infusion of a small stand- 
ing army into our old garrisons was of questionable poliey. 
I do not pretend to know upon what representations such 
an addition to the regular army in this country was made ; 
but if it was made with any feeling of apprehension as to 
our relations with our neighbours across the line, I think 
it was premature and unnecessary. It may be what is 
called an error on the right side, but I confess I look 
for the preservation of peace between ourselves and the 
American people far more to the cultivation of a just and 
generous style of dealing with the national troubles of that 
people, than I would to the presence here of a few thousand 
regulars more or less. We have everything to lose, and 
nothing to gain, by adopting any other tone or any other 
tactics, and I repeat here, at this the earliest opportunity I 
have had, what I said in my place in the last Parliament, 
that all this wretched small-talk about the failure of the 
Republican experiment in the United States ought to be 
frowned down, wherever it appears, by the Canadian public. 
I am not a Republican in politics ; long before these recent 
troubles came to a head in the American Union, I had 
ceased to dogmatise upon any abstract scheme of govern- 
ment ; but I have no hesitation in declaring my own hope 
and belief — a belief founded on evidence accumulated 
through several years of observation — that the American 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 11 

system, so far from having proved a failure — that that 
system may emerge from this, its first great domestic trial, 
purified, consolidated, disciplined, for greater usefulness 
and greater achievements than before. It is then, it seems 
to me, the duty of Canadian statesmen to look through the 
temporary to the lasting relations we are to sustain to our 
next neighbours; to suppress and discountenance all un- 
generous exultation at the trials and tribulations which 
they are now undergoing ; to show them, on the contrary, 
in this the day of their adversity, that while preferring on 
rational grounds the system of Constitutional monarchy for 
ourselves and our children — while preferring to lodge 
within the precincts of the Constitution elaborated through 
ages by the highest wisdom of the British Islands, we can 
at the same time be just, nay, generous, to the merits of 
the kindred system, founded by their fathers, in the defen- 
sive and justifiable war of their Ke volution. If we are 
freemen so are they, and the public calamities which befall 
one free people can never be matter of exultation to another, 
so long as the world is half darkened by despotism, as it is. 
The American system is the product of the highest political 
experience of modern times, working in the freest field, cast 
adrift from all European ties, by the madness of an arbi- 
trary minister, blind to all circumstances of time and place ; 
if that fabric should be destined to fall — as fall I firmly 
believe it will not in our day, nor at any early day, — the 
whole world must feel the shock, and all the civilised parts 
of the earth might well be clothed in mourning, if they 
only understood the value of what they had lost. I am 
told there are several American citizens here present : I 
was not before aware of the fact ; but if there are, I beg 
them to take from me, as one of the public men of this 
Province, that, so far as I am aware, with few and unin- 
fluential exceptions, the press and people of Canada are 
anxiously and sincerely desirous that they may be able soon 
to settle their domestic troubles, and that the future course 
of their Confederation may be as free from anarchical 
dangers as it has been hitherto, since the days of Wash- 
ington. 



CANADA'S INTEREST IN THE AMERICAN 
CIVIL WAR. 

An Address delivered during the Agricultural Exhibition, at 
London, C.W., September, 26th, 1861. 

Mr. McGee said: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle- 
men : — Many of you have been kind enough, through my 
much esteemed friend near me (Mr. Prank Smith), to 
invite me to speak to you on the subject of " Canada's 
Interest in the American Civil War/' Though you come 
together from all parts of the Province with a very different 
object — though you have dedicated this week to compare 
-notes and statistics with each other — though you have been 
occupied inspecting the plentiful fruits with which an all- 
gracious Providence has crowned the year — though your 
imaginations have been busy with the wheat field, the 
meadow, and the orchard — it was thought that we 
might spend an evening not unprofitably in consider- 
ing how far we are likely to be affected in our peaceful 
progress, our domestic industry, and our external rela- 
tions, by the stirring events which are taking place on 
the soil of Virginia and Missouri. Our friends were of 
opinion — and I fully agree with them — that while culti- 
vating our own fields in peace, under the broad banner of 
the triple cross — that while cherishing with a natural 
preference our own institutions, copied in general after the 
model furnished by our Island ancestors, we still cannot be 
insensible to the revolution attempted to the south of those 
great lakes, upon which a portion of Upper Canadians 
dwell and depend, and from which we in Lower Canada 
derive most of our freights and exchanges. Standing as 
we do to the north of the North, riding safely by the firm 



ADDBESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 13 

anchorage of a system of self-government, the most liberal 
that metropolis ever conceded to colony, since the emi- 
grating ages of the Greeks — bound up with the fortunes of 
a great empire by " links light as air, yet strong as iron/' we 
conceive that the public intelligence of Canada is sufficiently 
centred in itself, sufficiently calm, unbiassed, and comprehen- 
sive, to form opinions for ourselves, neither parrotted after 
the organs of the North, nor echoed after the orators of 
the South. In meeting — in discussing this subject at all 
« — I am sure it is your desire, I can safely say it is mine, 
that we should utter no word without deliberation and fore- 
thought — that if we are to be quoted anywhere as any 
evidence of the public opinion of this Province, the Province 
may not be discredited by the spirit in which we speak, nor 
by the meaning, intent, and substance of what we say. "We 
all feel, Mr. Chairman, that, end how it may, this surprising 
civil war is destined to form the third great epoch in the 
annals of the new world. As Columbus's discovery made 
the first, and /Washington's success the second, so this 
great insurrection of the Africanized States against the 
Federal authority must be considered the third epoch in 
American history. It is an epoch, however, yet unformed, 
whose issue is in the future, whose events are upon the 
march, and, therefore, to be spoken of by a prudent looker- 
on with many reservations. In Canada we have this 
advantage over both North and South, in their present 
blood-heat temper : we can express ourselves, without fear 
of censorship or Lynch law, whenever we do see our way 
clearly, and feel that there is a principle at stake. While 
I feel buoyed up in an atmosphere of free speech, I must 
add, on the other hand, that I feel borne down almost to 
speechlessness by the vastness of the subject. I cannot 
comprehend — I cannot imagine — how any rational being 
could approach such a subject in a light, or flippant, or 
gratified spirit. I cannot conceive the perversity of nature, 
the hopeless scepticism in man's self-government, which 
could make any one applaud at such a national tragedy — at 
the miserable prospect of a whole continent given over to 
bloodshed, rapine, and revolution. But of all men, I can 



14 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

least conceive the mental state of that English-speaking 
man, who can hear with satisfaction the language of which 
he is justly proud — the speech so rich in new and old 
wisdom — the tongue which we all had hoped a little while 
ago was dedicated for ever to herald peaceful progress 
throughout the earth — I cannot conceive the mental state 
of such a man, of any party, who can hear with satisfaction 
that language employed in the stern exchange of challenges 
and countersigns, along all the great central rivers of North 
America. Since the first dawn of this century the English 
tongue has not hitherto given expression to the barbarous 
passions of civil war; and it was one, not of the least, 
among the services of the Federal constitution to the con- 
tinent, that men of the same speech — intelligible to each 
other for all purposes of good, while they obeyed that 
supreme authority, were neither tempted, nor driven, nor 
led — at least not in multitudes — to defame each other, 
in a language whose resources of vituperation are only 
inferior to its adaptability for free intercourse, for 
calm argument, and for all the kindly and dignified offices 
of public 'and private life. The interests of Canada in 
the American civil war are, in general, the interest of all 
free governments, and in particular the interest of a next 
neighbour, having a thousand miles of frontier and many 
social enterprises in common with the Republic. We are our- 
selves an American people geographically and commercially, 
though we retain our British connection; our situation is 
continental, and our politics, in the largest and best sense, 
must needs be continental. It is true our Federal capital is 
on the other side of the Atlantic, not on this ; but although 
subject to a constitutional monarchy in our external affairs, 
we claim to be as free a people — indeed, we flatter our- 
selves we are a freer people — than our neighbours of. 
New York, or New England, or the North-western States, 
As a free people, with absolute domestic self-government, 
with local liberties, bound up in an Imperial Union, 
governed by our own majority constitutionally ascertained, 
we are as deeply interested in the issue of the present unhappy 
contest, as any of the States of the United States ; while, 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 15 

as a North American people, Canadians are more imme- 
diately and intimately concerned in the issue than any 
other population, not excepting the West Indians or the 
Mexicans. Let us glance first at the merits of this most 
unhappy contest. Are the Slave States engaged in a lawful 
resistance to Federal despotism, or in a wanton assault on 
the legitimate central authority ? To answer this question 
clearly, it is necessary to look back from the election of 
last November, in which Mr. Lincoln obtained the votes of 
a clear majority of the thirty-two States, to the date of the 
formation of the government by the original thirteen. 
There cannot, in my opinion, be a doubt on the mind of 
any one who looks carefully into the historical argument, 
that the signers of the Declaration of Independence rejected 
in that document the modern doctrine of Southern slavery ; 
nor that the authors of the Constitution of 1789 regarded 
its status as merely municipal; nor that the trainers of the 
North-west Ordinance of 1787 regarded it in the same 
light; nor that those of the Fathers who declared that the 
Alrican slave trade should be adjudged piracy after 1808, 
looked upon " the peculiar institution " as a baleful tree, to 
be girdled and finally cut down, rather than to be propa- 
gated and fostered, and, like the sacred tree of Abyssinia, 
invoked and idolized. Of late years, almost within my 
own recollection, a new doctrine has overrun the South, 
that slavery is national, not local — constitutional, not tem- 
porary ; and as it is the nature of one falsehood not to be 
able to stand alone — as a lie, to stand at all, must be 
triangulated — so this fallacy has begotten a false philo- 
sophy to strengthen it, a false theology to sanctify it ; and 
it has had its day. In asserting its more than municipal 
pretensions, the slave interest were compelled to buttress it 
up with the strange doctrines of State sovereignty and the 
right of secession — to deny, therefore, to the Federal power 
the prerogatives of what Webster called "a government 
proper/' endued with the first power of all governments, — 
self-preservation. The previous political question — to the 
question of Federal oppression — is this : Was the Federal 
authority " a government proper " ? It may be examined 



16 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

historically, or upon the internal evidence of the Constitu- 
tion, or both. It is certain that the Federal power was 
first constituted by the cession of ample sovereign attri- 
butes by all the people of the thirteen revolted Colonies. 
All the parties to that compact gave up the treaty-making 
and war-making powers ; the power to coin money ; to 
establish a Supreme Court of Judicature ; to pass an uni- 
form law for the admission of citizens by naturalisation. — ■ 
Virginia gave up her lands, New York gave up her customs, 
and almost every essential sign and substance of sovereignty 
became invested in the Federal Administration. If there 
is any proviso of secession, it must be found in the 
Federal Constitution ; but there is no such proviso there ; 
that instrument confers essential prerogatives of sovereignty, 
but is dumb as to any imaginable modus for the withdrawal 
of a State from its State allegiance. Secession is, in this 
view, a mere question of force — of revolution ; and resolves 
itself into just this : Are the Slave States able to break the 
bonds with which their fathers bound them, but which they 
are no longer willing to be bound by ? Question of con- 
stitutional or conventional right there is none, even for 
those of the original thirteen States, who now seek to with- 
draw from their allegiance. But with the more recently 
acquired States — in the case of Louisiana, Florida, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, pur- 
chased by Federal money and Federal blood — drawn into 
being by the warmth and nurture of the Federal power — 
conquered and colonised by Federal arms and Federal laws 
—the crime of treason is aggravated by the vice of ingra- 
titude, and their secession partakes, in an extreme degree, 
of the taint of constitutional and conventional repudiation 
and wrong. 

And from what description of government is it these 
States are so eager to break away ? By their own declara- 
tion, from a government hostile to "the extension" of 
human slavery; a government whose original sin is, in 
their eyes, the grand declaration, that "all men" — black 
as well as white — " are endowed with certain inalienable 
privileges, among which are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 17 

happiness" — a government which, wide-spread as were its 
arms, and various as were the interests it embraced, was 
never accused, even by the hottest zealot, of hostility to 
the general interests of the South, until the day of Mr. 
Lincoln's inauguration. On that day, the rebellion, how- 
ever, was already organised and on foot, under the plea of 
approaclnng, rather than of actual, injustice. Thus the 
cardinal American doctrine — which is British doctrine, too 
— that the majority, constitutionally ascertained, should rule, 
was flung to the wind, along with the elder doctrine of in- 
herent natural right ; and all that beneficent, elastic system, 
which has been so long the international law — the system 
of equilibrium of the new world ; — thus the flag, the history, 
the fame of a common nationality were cast off like a gar- 
ment out of season ; — thus the wisdom of three generations 
was undone in the madness of a month, and a system, con- 
secrated by the highest genius and the highest virtue of the 
eighteenth century, was contemptuously rejected by the 
presumption and petulance of the nineteenth. This ter- 
rible reverse may, no doubt, have fallen upon that too 
prosperous people for some wise, providential end. Those 
who believe in the retributions of history, imagine they see 
in it the well-deserved punishment of inordinate ambition. 
Not satisfied with the overthrow of British power in the 
original thirteen States, there was a periodical menace held 
out to British America; not content with the subjugation 
of the Spanish race in Florida, Texas, and California, there 
was a like menace held out against Cuba, and Mexico, and 
Central America. The Monroe doctrine, as expounded at 
San Juan, has not been entirely forgotten among us. But 
by far the least defensible series of republican aggressions 
were those committed upon the aboriginal nations. Whole 
tribes which, like the Powhattans and the Lenni Lenappe, 
could count their warriors by tens of thousands, when the 
white man's axe first smote their shelter, are now absolutely 
extinct. East of the Mississippi there remain not above 
10,000 aborigines; west of that river, all the remnants of 
all the tribes combined — adding 100,000 for California — 
do not exceed, in the total, 350,000. In removing these 

Q 



18 BKITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

remnants from their old hunting-grounds, all the forms of 
law were scrupulously observed ; the Indian treaties of the 
Union are an immense collection ; but it is impossible to 
reconcile with any notion of natural right, or conventional 
justice, such purchases as were made, from the Osage tribe 
for instance, of 48,000,000 acres of land, for the wretched 
stipend of $1000 a-year, payable to the chiefs! Still, it 
must be admitted that in these transactions the Federal 
policy was mild and merciful compared to the sanguinary 
intolerance of individual States — such as Arkansas, Florida, 
and Georgia. Nor is it an insignificant fact, that while, 
thus far (and I trust it will be so to the end), the Federal 
government has humanely refused to enlist the tomahawk 
and the scalping knife on its side, the Confederate autho- 
rities are said to have called back the Cherokee to the 
eastern war-path, from which he was years ago banished, 
in the name of Western civilisation.* 

South of the Texian border, men see, no doubt, in recent 
events, another lesson of retribution. The spoil of Mexico 
has proved the shirt of Nessus to the North. With Cali- 
fornia, came in an excess of luxury which has been too 
sudden to be safe. The extension of the Union to the 
Pacific, before the intervening south-western prairies were 
surveyed, not to say colonised, was no doubt a violence 
done to Nature, and as such it has been avenged. But we 
should remember on this head, that the invasion of Texas — 
the Santa Fe expedition, the descent on California, the 
fillibuster forays into South America, were mainly acts 
of that floating, turbulent Mississippi population, who are 
the chief authors of the present insurrection. Judged by 
the event, it would seem that Aaron Burr appeared on that 
river half a century too soon ; had he lived in this gene- 
ration he would have found fewer legal scruples to overcome 
— he would have been received in Eichmond, not as a cul- 
prit to be tried for conspiracy, but as a hero to be honoured 
for his enterprising patriotism. 



* This statement, though generally believed at the time, was not, I am 
happy to s&y, subsequently found to be correct. 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 19 

Yet vast as the extent of the Union became within the 
last few years, it may be observed that, between the Eocky 
Mountains and the Atlantic at least, there is no natural 
barrier to its governmental unity. A canoe launched on 
the upper waters of the Missouri, within sight of those 
snowy summits, may, with a few portages, make its way to 
the levee at New Orleans ; a pine, felled on the Cattaraugus 
hills, within sight of Lake Erie, may be floated from the 
Alleghany to the Ohio, and so to the same port with the 
canoe from Kansas or Dacotah. An old English ballad 
tells us how — 

The Avon to the Severn runs — 
The Severn to the sea. 



And still more strikingly federal is the river system of this 
continent, soutli of the great lakes. Our system also is 
complete in itself, for we have not a single tributary of size 
flowing towards us from the south ; but it is to be observed 
of the American Union, that if it had the ambition of a giant 
it had also the framework of a giant. Erom another bond 
of almost equal force with the language and the river system 
— the memory of a common Pater Patria — the Secessionists 
are likewise labouring to break away. In him the South as 
much as the North, and the North as the South, were accus- 
tomed to hold forth the great exemplar of patriotism, the 
highest type of their national character. Yet it now seems 
doubtful whether, in the hollow repetitions of his praise, 
the leaders of the Slave States cared to bestow any great 
degree of study on his character. Though far from being 
the bloodless myth that vulgar panegyrists have made him 
— though capable of anger which transported him to the 
utterance of an oath, and of contrition which humbled him 
to the earth, George Washington was, take him for all in 
all, the New World's noblest creature — the least faulty 
public man of modern times. His striking transition from 
the camp to civil life always suggests to me, thougli in 
another sense than the author wrote it, the Scandinavian 
poet's eulogy on the martial astronomer of Uranienborg — 

o 2 



20 BKITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

"The good Knight ceased to walk on 
The fields of war and gore, 
His sword and helm the balk on 
He hung to use no more. 

" And he his eye projected 
Into the night afar, 
And keen the course inspected 
Of every twinkling star." 

The grave of Washington ought to have consecrated the 
valley of the Potomac to peace and union for ever. Will 
those who now battle about that tomb partition out his 
dust when they have rent asunder his system? Could 
either side assume sole custody of those pregnant ashes ? 
To me, the violence done to all actualities, to the living 
language, the living kindred, and the river system, seems 
less monstrous and unnatural than this violence done to 
the maxims and memory of the Pater P atria, by the very 
means of all others he most abhorred and deprecated — civil 
war and sectional hostility. 

The next question to be considered is, the species of 
government the seceded States propose to themselves if they 
should come successfully out of the conflict. They intend 
to call it a Eepublic, but they do not attempt to deny that 
it is to be a pagan Eepublic — an Oligarchy founded upon 
caste, the caste founded upon colour. A Eepublic founded 
upon the servile labour of 4,000,000 blacks to begin with; 
with 200,000 or 300,000 planters, and the rest of the 
white population — over 7,000,000 rather freedmen than 
freemen; such an Oligarchy, stripped of all disguises, 
being of the newest, must be of the most exacting and 
intolerant description. Such an Oligarchy would combine 
some of the worst features of the worst system hitherto 
endured by mankind; a rale of caste as inexorable as 
obtains in India ; a Patrician power of life and death ; a 
Spanish contempt of mechanic industry ; a Yenetian es- 
pionage ; a Carthaginian subtlety and craft. Organise an 
American power on such a basis, give it a flag, a Senate, a 
military aristocracy, a literature, and a history, and you 
(DGndemn mankind on this continent to begin over again 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 21 

the great battle of first principles, which, in the Christian 
parts of the earth, were thought to have been settled and 
established some centuries ago. As long as the monstrous 
doctrines of the innate diversity of the human race, the 
incurable barbarism of the black, and the hereditary master- 
ship of the white, were confined to individuals, or States, 
or sections, they were comparatively harmless ; but build a 
government on such a basis; accept 300,000 whites as 
the keepers and lords of life and death over 4,000,000 
blacks ; erect an entire social and political superstructure 
on that foundation, and contemplate, if you can, without 
horror, the problems and the conflicts you are preparing for 
posterity ! 

Tor, gentlemen, evade it as diplomacy may, what would 
be the effect of the recognition of such a Republic ? If 
the northern boundary of Maryland (near the 40° parallel) 
is to be continued to the Pacific, or if the Missouri com- 
promise line of 36° 30 is to be continued, slavery will 
obtain a larger territory than freedom, north of the 
equator. We will thus place beneath the feet of a few 
hundred thousand men, a country larger than all the Free 
States, or all British America combined; a country — 
exclusive of Mexico — already extending over 15 degrees of 
latitude, and 40 degrees of longitude ; a country abounding 
in cereal and in tropical products, called for in all the 
markets of the world. The labour to cultivate this vast 
scope of continent, so governed, must be servile labour, and 
the only race of slaves accessible to the new oligarchy are in 
Africa. The Gulf of Guinea would soon be familiar with 
the new flag. Once salute it with the honours due to 
sovereignty in British waters, and you send it with your 
sanction to the Congo and the Senegal. — While missionaries 
and men of science are penetrating the inmost recesses of 
Africa, some by way of Mount Atlas, others through 
Egypt and Abyssinia, others tracing the line across its vast 
extent, others starting from Zanzibar and Mozambique — 
while all this heroism of science and of the cross is exhibited 
to us on that mysterious stage, are we prepared to sanction 
the erection of new barracoons on the slave coast, and new 



22 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

auction marts for human creatures along the cotton coast ? 
Has the benevolence and science of Europe explored the 
land only to bring the slave seller and the slave buyer more 
readily together ? Is dense night to settle down again on 
all the 6 0,0 00, 000 "who people that forlorn and melancholy 
region ? For of one thing we must rest certain, the 
government that recognises a slave power on the Gulf of 
Mexico, recognises by one and the same act that slave 
power in the Gulf of Guinea. Was it not enough for 
Europe to have fastened such an evil on the infant societies 
of the New World, that she now, in the hour of hope for 
its extinction, comes to the rescue to perpetuate the crime ? 
What has become of all the public penances done for that 
sin of our ancestors, of all the declarations against slavery 
and the slave trade ? Are they all to be unsaid, renounced, 
controverted, because Manchester is alarmed for its cotton, 
and Liverpool and Havre are averse to the blockade ? We, 
in Canada, must feel deeply whatever concerns the pros- 
perity of the Empire ; we should grieve to hear of want and 
suffering in Lancashire, as much as if it w r ere in one of our 
own populous counties ; but we know there is cotton in 
Brazil, in India, in Egypt, in Surat : we know that cotton 
grows readily in Guinea, in Jamaica, in Queensland ; and 
we have an abiding faith that the glorious stand taken by 
the Empire in recent days against African slavery, will not 
be deserted, because there may be a short supply of a single 
staple, which in a very few years may be effectually remedied, 
not only for the present but also for the future of the 
trade. I do not underrate the vital importance to England 
of an ample supply of cotton ; there are a million mortals 
depending on that industry ; but there is capital enough 
in England, and there are cotton-fields enough in the 
rest of the world, to enable Manchester to shake off her 
dependance on slave labour and now is the time in 
which that long-desired change can be wrought — once and 
for ever. 

Being a continental people, we have to consider for our- 
selves, whether we ought to welcome a new era in the 
military organisation of this continent — whether we ought 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 23 

to do or say anything to hasten the advent of such an era. 
We have been steadily making friends of our republican 
neighbours during the last twenty years. What have we 
to expect in the combinations of the future that we do not 
possess, or that we may not obtain, if their union be 
preserved ? The friendship of the South, in return for our 
sympathy ? Our institutions are too entirely dissimilar to 
make such a political friendship possible, even if it were 
desirable, and if the Eree States did not interpose their 
whole extent between us and them ; while, judged by the 
only examples which are vast enough to match this 
immense disruption — the breaking up of Alexander's 
Empire — of the Roman Empire — of Mahomedan unity — 
of Papal unity at the Eeformation — the different dogmas 
for which these combatants fight, the different systems they 
hold sacred, must lead to an era of standing armies, of 
passports, of espionage, of fluctuating boundaries, and 
border wars. Are we prepared to welcome a state of per- 
manent and still-increasing armaments for North America ; 
are we prepared by word, or deed, or sign, or secret 
sympathy, to hasten the advent of such times, for our 
posterity, if not ourselves ? I sincerely trust that a wiser 
and a nobler sense of our position and duties will direct 
and instruct us to a wiser and nobler use of whatever 
influence we may possess with the mother country in the 
present exigency. Tiiere is another consideration : if two 
English-speaking powers take the place of the one with 
which alone the Empire has had to deal these 80 years 
past, there will inevitably arise a balance, and a rivalry of 
diplomacy, between them. If cotton is strong enough to 
bind England to the South, and if England becomes the 
intimate ally of the one power, Erance, her great western 
rival, will cultivate the most amicable relations with the 
other. If England makes herself necessary at Richmond, 
she will cause Erance to become necessary at Washington ; 
and Erance will not be slow to cultivate the affections of 
the North. Strange as it may seem (such is the elasticity 
of Erench manners), it is nevertheless true, that the Erench 
naval and military officers were highly popular in the war 



24 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

of Independence, when stationed at Philadelphia, New 
York, and Newport. Since Trance parted with her own 
possessions upon this continent, it has been her traditional 
policy to build up a West-Atlantic power to combat with 
England. It was the policy of the old noblesse, who ruled 
France in 1 777 ; it was the policy of Napoleon I., when he 
gave up Louisiana, from the Gulf to the Minnesota line, to 
Jefferson ; it is the same policy, which, according to report, 
led a French prince, very near the throne, to drink to the 
success of the North, in his recent visit to the other side of 
the Lakes. The North being the second maritime power 
- — the second Atlantic power — would form, in alliance 
with France, a most serious rivalry to England's 
maritime ascendency; and I leave you, gentlemen, to 
ponder over the probable consequences of such an alliance 
in our waters, or along our thousand miles of frontier, 
originally explored, and at several points first colonised, 
from France. 

In the first stages of the contest, it seemed to me and 
others, that the public sympathy in this country was 
altogether with the North. Some offensive bravado from 
one or two New York newspapers was made use of by 
some one or more Canadian journals, to arrest, to turn 
back the genial currents of that sympathy. A pretence 
was next made that it was a war undertaken from a lust of 
dominion, and not from any sincere love of liberty. 
Because the Federal government, which always recognised 
slavery as the creature of the municipal law south of the 
Pennsylvania line, did not rashly set that municipal law at 
nought ; therefore, it was not at all a war for freedom ! 
It would require very little argument — none at all, if the 
view I have taken of the merits of the controversy be 
correct — to prove that a war for the unity of the Republic 
must be necessarily, ipso facto, a war for liberty. The 
dogmas on which the Eepublic is founded are genuine 
articles of every freeman's creed ; like the dogmas of the 
Christian religion itself, they are held in deposit by the 
Federal hierarchy ; one age or one generation is not suffi- 
cient to exhaust or to develope all their latent salutary 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 25 

efficacy. It may be that the keepers have not always 
proved worthy of their trust, that the expositors have not 
comprehended the true spirit of their own doctrine ; but he 
must be a very impatient, a very unreasonable American 
reformer, who would not be content with the progress 
the anti-slavery cause has made, from the days when 
Mr. Garrison had a halter round his neck in Boston, 
till the day when Mr. Lincoln was carried on the 
Chicago platform into the presidential mansion. The fears 
of the South for the perpetuity of slavery are better 
evidence than the sophisms of our anti-American editors 
and orators. They felt the decisive hour gradually but 
surely drawing nigh, and desiring to guard against every 
possibility of peaceful emancipation, they are now battling 
for an opportunity to reconstitute their entire system on the 
abominable foundation of the eternal bondage of the blacks. 
Is not battling to put down such a scheme, ipso facto, 
making war for freedom ? 

Another argument calculated to prejudice the Canadian 
mind is this, that the Free are endeavouring to enforce upon 
the Slave States the very same superiority w T hich their 
revolutionary fathers denied to Great Britain, If I under- 
stand the merits of the American revolution, there is no 
parallel whatever in the causes of quarrel. In the days of 
Washington, Mr. Grenville, Lord North, and the other 
authors of that revolt — for the seeds were shipped from 
England which were harvested in America, — held that 
they had an Imperial right to tax the colonies without the 
consent of their legislatures, and they practically tested that 
right, first in the Stamp Act, and afterwards in the Tea Tax. 
Has there been any pretence set up by the South that 
Congress, the Imperial power, has violated the existing 
rights or the municipal institutions of any one of the States 
subject to its superiority ? Has there been any direct or 
indirect interference with the domestic institution, since 
the slave trade was declared piracy in 1808? The com- 
promises of 1820 and 1850 — the adoption of Mr. Douglas's 
principle of the right of territories to admission to the 
Union,. with or without slavery^ as they should themselves 



26 BEITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

determine ; the decision of the Supreme Court in the 
celebrated " Dred Scott case/' were all concessions to the 
South, or, more strictly speaking, to the desire to perpetuate 
the Union. Nor, looking at it calmly, from the point of 
view of history, do I feel disposed to admit that Chief 
Justice Taney, or Mr. Douglas, or Mr. Clay, went too far, 
paid too high a price, for the preservation of the Federal 
bond. The ordinary American mind has been, for a 
generation or two, so occupied in the contemplation of the 
blessings of liberty, that it has neglected or overlooked the 
co-equal worth of unity. This war — this great adversity 
bursting like a summer thunderstorm in their clear sky — 
will lead them to inquire into many phenomena in the 
heavens above and the earth beneath. Discipline and 
subordination in war will teach them the value of unity 
and obedience to laws in time of peace. They will learn 
that unity is to liberty as the cistern in the desert to the 
seldom sent shower; that of liberty we may truly say, 
though Providence should rain it down upon our heads, 
though the land should thirst for it, till it gaped at every 
pore, without a legal organisation to retain, without a 
supreme authority to preserve the Heaven-sent blessing, all 
in vain are men called free, all in vain are States declared 
to be independent. The contest waged by King George 
III. against the thirteen United Colonies was a contest to 
assert the Imperial right of taxation ; a right unheard of, 
as Mr. Burke proved, before the year 1764 ; a right which 
we in Canada, loyal as we are, would resist as stoutly as 
did the Americans in 1776; but the Southern States, in 
their several " ordinances of secession, " have not alleged 
any parallel innovation on their domestic rights against the 
United States government. They have alleged a case of 
oppression, without particulars ; there are no specific 
counts in their indictment; it is one broad general 
assumption, or assertion, of sovereignty reserved and danger 
apprehended. Now, as theologians contend that there can 
be no such thing as heresy in general, neither can we 
conceive of any such thing as oppression in general. 
"When men have been badly hurt they know where they are 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 27 

hurt, but these people do not. I dismiss, as unworthy of 
further consideration, the sophism that the revolutionary 
war of 1776 presents any sort of parallel to this insur- 
rection of the minority against the constitutional majority 
in 1861. And in discussing it let me add, of my own 
opinion, that the civil war of itself proves nothing against 
republican institutions, nor against the Federal constitu- 
tion considered in itself. It only proves a very old truth, 
that social slavery cannot long co-exist undisturbed in the 
presence of political liberty. 

Besides the military and diplomatic possibilities of 
disunion, we have also to consider the commercial interests 
involved. To show the extent to which our credit and 
prosperity depend upon that of our neighbours, I will give 
you, first the figures of what we sold to them for the four 
years ending with '54, the year the Reciprocity Tn aty was 
negotiated, and next, what we sold to them in the four 
years ending with 1860 : — 

Pour years ending 1854 . . . $27,081,887 
Tour years ending 1860 . . . $58,947,384 

This increase from 27 to 58 millions of exports is, as 
you perceive, more than double, while there is this further 
consideration to be taken into the account, that whereas on 
the 27 millions the United States collected $2,400,000 in 
duties — that is, taxed your industry to that extent in four 
years, on the 58 millions, if we are to believe Mr. Hatch, 
they have not collected in the four years ending in 1859 — 
the latest figures in his report — the total sum of $300,000. 
If, however, the Reciprocity Treaty has been beneficial to 
us, it has been no less so, in my opinion, to the Americans. 
We took from them in the four years ending 1860, goods 
and products to the value of $70,000,000 and upwards. 
On these imports, we of course raised a very large share of 
our revenue — fully one-fourth of our whole revenue ; but 
the Americans were not without their profits, and the 
custom duties fell, as they naturally must, on Canadian 
consumers. The value of our whole American commerce 



28 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

in 1860 may be estimated in this way, that whereas the 
year's exports and imports amounted together to over 
$69,000,000, our exports and imports to and from the 
United States summed up within a .-fraction of 38 out of 
those $69,000,000. Our entire trade with Great Britain 
reached to but $29,000,000, and with the rest of the world 
to about $2,000,000. Now, gentlemen, this enormous 
trade may be injured, decreased, crippled, or even lost in 
various contingencies. It is a trade maintained with the 
Free States altogether; it may be injured by their defeats, 
by their embarrassments, by their onerous burthens in a 
long-continued war. It may be crippled, or even lost, 
through international estrangement, enmity, and a spirit of 
retaliation. I ask the farmers, the millers, the forwarders 
and lumberers of Upper Canada and Central Canada to 
think of this, when they see a portion of the press they 
patronise artfully and continually labouring to stir up 
hostility and hatred towards the Northern Americans. I 
venture to ask those journalists themselves to reflect upon 
the consequences to -Canada of a refusal to continue the 
Eeciprocity Treaty in 1865 ; to estimate the consequences, 
to count the cost, to ask themselves how many ploughs 
may rust in the farmyard, how many bushels may rot in the 
warehouse, how many mortgages may be foreclosed by the 
bank or the court ; what stringency, what gloom, and what 
suffering, what permanent check to prosperity must be 
inflicted upon Canada and its people ? 

For all these reasons, commercial, diplomatic, military, 
and Christian, it must be to us a problem of the highest 
interest, whether this civil war is to be a long or a short 
one, and on which side the chances of victory may incline. 
We can only form our judgments as to the issue by com- 
paring the character, the resources, and the situation of the 
combatants. If the knowledge of causes is prophetic of 
events, and if we could master the whole of any set of 
existing facts, we could, probably, construct history a priori 
for a generation or two after our own time. We must not, 
however, mistake the bravado articles of any particular 
press as an infallible index of Northern character, if we do 



ADDKESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 29 

not wish to be self-deceived. The people of the North are 
20,000,000; they are very generally educated, so far at 
least as to acquire and exchange the current information of 
the day. They are, men and women, all politicians, and 
now all Unionists. Their unanimity, though not so silent, 
is not less real than that of their Southern brethren. 
When I see men like Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Everett as 
warm in the support of Mr. Lincoln's administration as if 
they were members of his cabinet, I cannot doubt that the 
energies of the North are braced, that no man really essen- 
tial is wanting. We are to remember, however, that this 
generation of Americans have hitherto had everything their 
own way — that since the Treaty of Ghent, forty years ago, 
their voyage of life has been all plain sailing. They have 
been born to prosperity and dandled in luxury and self- 
opinion. The first great adversity with such a people is 
hard to bear, but they bear it bravely, and will learn to 
bear it better. I may be reminded of their panic flight in 
the first battle ; but what militia, what army, after all, has 
not been, at one time or another, smitten with panic ? Not 
to mention modern instances, which might seem invidious, 
no one I suppose will question the courage of the Spaniards 
who followed Cortez into the city of Mexico ; nor the 
courage of the legions who landed with Caesar to restore 
Roman ascendency in Egypt. Yet we know that a clamour 
raised by some sailors who had come up to witness the 
assault on Alexandria in the one case, and the breaking 
down of a causeway in the other, threw those Spanish and 
Eoman veterans into panic flight, even under the eye, 
within the sound of the voice, of their illustrious captains. 
The North will fight ; the North has the numbers two to 
one in its favour; its credit exceeds in proportion its 
numbers; it can command both "gold and iron," the two 
hinges on which all wars must move. The South, on the 
other hand, possesses in its peculiar social formation some 
advantages as a war-making power, which go a good way to 
make up for its deficiency in numbers and convertible 
wealth. It cherished in its colonial stage a tincture of 
feudal pride, which has not been entirely obliterated. 



30 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

The spirit of caste is not uncongenial to the military 
spirit. So long as its 4,000,000 of bondsmen close 
their ears to the distant din of war, and labour as if 
the earth did not rock beneath their feet, the whites can 
spare a percentage to the army, equal to almost double 
their number at the North. A very large proportion of 
these whites are horsemen from their childhood, and as 
cavalry ought to be much superior to an equal number of 
Northern tradesmen or townsmen. In their unanimity, in 
their sense of discipline, in their gradations of ranks and 
classes, they possess some materials of military success 
which the North might envy. In their consciousness of 
superiority, sedulously cultivated, and unhesitatingly be- 
lieved, they have another great element of success ; for 
nothing is more certain than that undoubting belief is often 
the perfector of its own prophecies. Yet the South, besides 
its inferiority in numbers and in realised wealth, has the 
fatal defect of its shallow shores without a first-class 
harbour from Norfolk to Galveston — a coast more easily 
blockaded than any other of the same extent with which 
we are acquainted. They are not by their position, nor 
by their discipline, a maritime people, and even if they 
succeed, they must be for ever dependant on some foreign 
maritime power. Yet with all these drawbacks they are 
an enemy not to be despised, and the war they wage will 
neither be a short war nor a weak war. 

Whatever indirect advantage Canada or the Empire 
might derive from the war, the people of Canada can never 
be indifferent to the dangers to the system of free inter- 
course and common arbiter, which is to stand or fall in 
this encounter. It is not by feeding our minds with such 
paltry passions as have been sometimes appealed to, that 
we, the possessors of a seventh part of North America, are 
to shame our Republican neighbours out of their assaults 
upon ourselves. Our littleness is not to rebuke their 
littleness ; we are not to answer railing with railing, nor 
to heap up wrath against the day of wrath. We can afford 
to speak of the A merican system in this hour of its agony, 
in the glowing language of their finest poet : 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 31 

" Thou, too, sail on, Ship of State ! 
Sail on, Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what Master laid the keel, 
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope ; 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope." 



We do not — to continue the poet's image — while the ship 
is driving on the rocks, her signal gun pealing for aid 
above the din of the tempest — we do not lurk along the 
shore, gloating over her danger, in hope of enriching our- 
selves by the wreck. No, God forbid ! Such is not the 
feeling of the people of Canada. On the contrary, so far 
as their public opinion can be heard throughout the British 
Empire or the United States, their wish would be that the 
Republic, as it was twelve months ago, might live to 
celebrate in concord, in 1876, the centenary of its Inde- 
pendence. We prefer our own institutions to theirs ; but 
our preference is rational, not rancorous ; we may think, 
and we do think, it would have been well for them to have 
retained more than they did retain of the long-tried wisdom 
of their ancestors; we may think, and we do think, that 
their overthrow of ancient precedents and venerable safe- 
guards was too sweeping in 1776; but as between con- 
tinental peace and chronic civil war — as between natural 
right and oligarchical oppression; as between the con- 
stitutional majority and the lawless minority ; as between 
free intercourse and armed frontiers ; as between negro 
emancipation and a revival of the slave trade ; as between 
the golden rule and the cotton crop of 1861; as between 
the revealed unity of the race and the heartless heresy of 
African bestiality ; as between the North and South in this 
deplorable contest, I rest firmly in the belief, that all that 
is most liberal, most intelligent, and most magnanimous in 
Canada and the Empire, are for continental peace, for con- 
stitutional arbitrament, for universal, if gradual emancipa- 



32 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

tion, for free intercourse, for justice, mercy, civilisation, 
and the North.* 

* Whoever has the patience to follow to the end this series of speeches 
and addresses will perceive that the strong pro-Northern sentiments of the 
speaker, so freely uttered in the doubtful and discouraging days of 1861, 
though never retracted, were repeated less frequently, and with several 
modifications, during the three succeeding years. This was a natural con- 
sequence of the tone taken towards Canada, and the Empire, by the organs 
of Northern opinion, especially after the affair of the Trent. It is to be 
hoped that the heartily friendly feeling which was expressed in this 
address, and so heartily applauded by a fair representation of the best men 
of Upper Canada, may be found capable of restoration, without any com- 
promise of self-respect on the part of either people. 



AMERICAN RELATIONS AND CANADIAN 
DUTIES. 

Address to the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society, Quebec, 
May 10th, 1862. J 

Mr. McGee said : — Ladies and Gentlemen, I received 
some time ago, a warm invitation from my friend, Captain 
Anderson, the Secretary of this Society, asking me to be 
present and take part in the proceedings of this evening. 
It was an invitation given with great cordiality, for an 
Irish society's benefit, and the object was to enable the 
society to assist the friendless emigrant, and the unfortu- 
nate resident. It seems to be incident to our state of 
society, where we have no legal provision for the poor, no 
organised system of relief of any public general kind, that 
there should be a division of charitable labour among our 
different voluntary societies, — and as I look upon them all, 
whether under the auspices of Saint Patrick or any other 
patron saint, as being themselves but members of one vast 
society — the society of Canada, — I did not feel that I 
could, either on Irish or on Canadian grounds, decline the 
invitation. It is very true, Mr. President, that you and I 
will not be found to-morrow worshipping under the same 
roof, but is that any reason why we should not be united 
here to-night in a common work of charity ? With me it 
is no reason ; such differences exist in the first elements of 
our population : and it is the duty of every man, especially 
of every man undergoing the education of a statesman, to 
endeavour to mitigate instead of inflaming, religious ani- 
mosities. No prejudices lie nearer the surface than those 
which plead the sanction of religion — any idiot may arouse 
them, to the wise man's consternation, and the peaceful 

D 



34 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

man's deep regret. If in times past they have been too 
often and too easily aroused, we must all deeply deplore it ; 
but for the future, — in these new and eventful days, when 
it is so essential that there shall be complete harmony 
within our ranks, — let us all agree to brand the propagan- 
dist of bigotry as the most dangerous of our enemies, 
because his work is to divide us among ourselves, and 
thereby render us incapable of common defence. It is 
upon this subject of the public spirit to be cultivated among 
us — of the spirit which can alone make Canada safe and 
secure, rich and renowned — which can alone attract popula- 
tion and augment capital — that I desire to say the few 
words with which I must endeavour to fulfil your expecta- 
tions. I feel that it is a serious subject for a popular 
festival — but these are serious times, and they bring upon 
their wings most serious reflections. That shot fired at 
Tort Sumter, on the 12th of April, 1861, had a message 
for the North as well as for the South, and here in Quebec, 
if anywhere, by the light which history lends us we, should 
find those who can rightly read that eventful message. 
Here, from this rock, for which the immortals have con- 
tended, here from this rock, over which Richelieu's wisdom 
and Chatham's genius, and the memory of heroic men, the 
glory of three great nations has hung its halo, we should 
look forth upon a continent convulsed, and ask of a 
ruler, " Watchman, what of the night ? " That shot fired 
at Tort Sumter w T as the signal gun of a new epoch for 
North America, which told the people of Canada, more 
plainly than human speech can ever express it, to sleep no 
more, except on their arms — unless in their sleep they desire 
to be overtaken and subjugated. For one, Mr. President, I 
can safely say that if I know myself I have not a particle 
of prejudice against the United States ; on the contrary, I 
am bound to declare that many things in the constitution 
and the people I sincerely esteem and admire. What I 
contend for with myself, and what I would impress upon 
others is, that the lesson of the last few months furnished by 
America to the world, should not be thrown away upon 
the inhabitants of Canada. I do not believe that it is our 



ADDRESSES ON" VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 35 

destiny to be engulphed into a Republican union, renovated 
and inflamed with the wine of victory, of which she now drinks 
so freely — it seems to me we have theatre enough under our 
feet to act another and a worthier part ; we can hardly join 
the Americans on our own terms, and we never ought to 
join them on theirs. A Canadian nationality, not French - 
Canadian, nor British-Canadian, nor Irish-Canadian — 
patriotism rejects the prefix — is, in my opinion, what we 
should look forward to, — that is what we ought to labour 
for, that is what we ought to be prepared to defend to the 
death. Heirs of one-seventh of the continent — inheritors 
of a long ancestral story, — and no part of it dearer to us 
that the glorious tale of this last century, — warned not by 
cold chronicles only, but by living scenes, passing before 
our eyes, of the dangers of an unmixed democracy, — we are 
here to vindicate our capacity, by the test of a new political 
creation. What we most immediately want, Mr. President, 
to carry on that work, is men — more men — and still more 
men! The ladies, I dare say, will not object to that 
doctrine. We may not want more lawyers and doctors — 
but we want more men, in town and country. We want 
the signs of youth and growth in our young and growing 
country. One of our maxims should be — " early marriages, 
and death to old bachelors/' I have long entertained a 
project of a special tax upon that most undesirable class of 
the population, and our friend the Finance Minister may 
perhaps have something of the kind among the agreeable 
surprises of his next budget. Seriously, Mr. President, 
what I chiefly wanted to say in coming here is this, that if 
we would make Canada safe and secure, rich and renowned, 
we must all liberalise — locally, sectionally, religiously, 
nationally. There is room enough in tins country for one 
great free people, but there is not room enough, under the 
same flag, and the same laws, for two or three angry, 
suspicious, obstructive "nationalities." Dear, most justly 
dear to every land beneath the sun are the children born in 
her bosom, and nursed upon her breast ; . but when the 
man of another country, wherever born, speaking whatever 
speech, holding whatever creed, seeks out a country to 

D 2 



36 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

serve and honour and cleave to, in weal or in woe, — when 
he heaves up the anchor of his heart from its old moorings, 
and lays at the feet of the mistress of his choice, his New 
country, all the hopes of his ripe manhood, he establishes 
by such devotion a claim to consideration, not second even 
to that of the children of the soil. He is their brother 
delivered by a new birth from the dark-wombed Atlantic 
ship that ushers him into existence in the new w r orld, — he 
stands by his own election among the children of the 
household, and narrow and most unwise is that species of 
public spirit, which, in the perverted name of patriotism, 
would refuse him all he asks — " a fair field and no favour." 
I am not about to talk politics, Mr. President, though 
these are grand politics — I reserve all else for what is 
usually called " another place " ; — and I may add, for 
another time. But I am so thoroughly convinced and 
assured that we are gliding along the currents of a new 
epoch, that if I break silence at all, in the presence of my 
fellow-subjects, I cannot choose but speak of the immense 
issues which devolve upon us, at this moment, in this 
country. I may be pardoned, perhaps, if I refer to another 
matter that comes home to you, Mr. President, and to 
myself. Though we are alike opposed to all invidious 
national distinctions on this soil, we are not opposed, I 
hope, to giving full credit to all the elements which at the 
present day compose our population. In this respect it is 
a source of gratification to learn that among your invited 
guests, to-night, there are twelve or thirteen members of 
the House to which I have the honour to belong — gentle- 
men from both sides of the House — who drew their native 
breath in our own dearly beloved ancestral island. It 
takes three quarters of the world in these days to hold an 
Irish family, and it is pleasant to know that some of the 
elder sons of the family are considered, by their discrimina- 
ting fellow-citizens, worthy to be entrusted with the 
liberties and fortunes of their adopted countries. We have 
here men of Irish birth who have led, and who still lead, 
the Parliament of Canada, and who are determined to lead 
it in a spirit of genuine liberality. We, Irishmen, Pro- 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 37 

testant and Catholic, born and bred in a land of religious 
controversy, should never forget that we now live and act 
in a land of the fullest religious and civil liberty. All we 
have to do, is, each for himself, to keep down dissensions 
which can only weaken, impoverish, and keep back the 
country; each for himself do all he can to increase its 
wealth, its strength, and its reputation ; each for himself — 
you and you, gentlemen, and all of us — to welcome every 
talent, to hail every invention, to cherish every gem of art, 
to foster every gleam of authorship, to honour every 
acquirement and every natural gift, to lift ourselves to the 
level of our destinies, to rise above all low limitations and 
narrow circumscriptions, to cultivate that true catholicity 
of spirit which embraces all creeds, all classes, and all races, 
in order to make of our boundless Province, so rich in 
known and unknown resources, a great new Northern 
nation. 



BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

Speech at a Political Pic-nic at Port Robinson, Canada West, 
September 18th, 1862. 

Hon. Mr. McGee said lie had listened witli great 
pleasure to the statesmanlike,, national, broad-principled, 
and high-spirited speech of the Premier of Nova Scotia, 
(Mr. Howe), and he had heard the fervent, animated, and 
manly sentiments expressed by his lion, friend, Mr. 
Mitchell, of New Brunswick, with almost equal pleasure. 
Tor his own part he had never been a sectional man. He 
had no sectional partialities in this country. He was 
neither a Lower Canadian nor an Upper Canadian. In the 
Government, or out of the Government, he had never 
known what the old Province line was. The Province line 
was obliterated before he came to the country, and never 
should be restored with his consent. And not being a 
sectional man as regarded Canada, he was not a sectional 
man as regarded British America ; for if, in the progress of 
events, we could draw together more closely, in the presence 
of the perilous circumstances that confronted us on our 
Southern frontier, the bonds of amity and union with our 
British brethren who dwelt on the shores of the Atlantic, 
he, for his part, was ready to bid Godspeed to the Union, 
and to take his share of the responsibility of bringing it 
about. The last great act of union that was accomplished 
on this continent of British America, was accomplished 
amidst great difficulties, and as it appeared to him very 
hastily in some of its details, and it had worked in some 
respects not to the satisfaction of the people either of 
Upper or Lower Canada. But still that Act of Union of 
1840 was a step in the right direction, one step forward in 



ADDEESSES ON VAKIOUS PUBLIC OCCASION'S. 39 

the great pathway which Providence seemed to have pre- 
scribed to the British people of the northern portion of this 
continent. And now, looking back at it, he did not think 
there was a public man of any party, with any pretension 
to information or influence in Canadian affairs, who would 
be prepared to go back to the state of things which existed 
before that Union. As that Union of 1840, therefore, was 
a step in the right direction, so he believed that, in the 
fulness of time and of events, a greater union than that 
would come, and that all the people of the north, bred and 
nursed under the system of local freedom, under the shadow 
and protection of the three-crossed flag, would come to- 
gether in a close union, having learned wisdom from the 
example of our brethren across the border, whose schism 
he deplored, and the fruits of which were unhappily seen 
to day on the field of battle, gathered with the sickle that 
gathers the crop of death. These results we could not 
rejoice over, but the example we might profit by. And if 
we were to be an independent people — which, however, he 
did not at all apprehend to be probable as an immediate 
contingency — let us be an independent people with a sea- 
board as well as an inland country. If we were to be an 
Imperial people, which he thought was at present our 
position, let us continue an Imperial people, but not to be an 
Imperial puppet, to be petted at one moment, and stigma- 
tized before the world at another. Let us not be kept for 
the convenience of Imperial Senators, as Scott tells us 
Mungo Malagrowther was kept in the Scottish Court, to 
be whipped in the place of the young Prince, to show 
what he ought to have got when he was naughty, because 
it would have been unconstitutional to have touched any 
portion of his Royal Highness's person with a rod. It 
would appear that when it devolved upon the Empire to 
subdue the spirit of party at home, the object was some- 
times aimed at by administering a whipping to some of its 
colonial possessions, and that the same thing was resorted 
to when it was sought to make an impression for some 
purpose or other on the Government of the Northern 
States at Washington. These colonies ought not to submit 



40 BRITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

to such treatment. Let them say to the people of the 
mother country, We are willing to bear our share, with 
you and all portions of her Majesty's subjects, in the 
anxieties and perils and dangers of the Empire, but insult 
and opprobrium we will not take from your hands. He 
was glad to hear the broad national sentiments to which 
they had just listened, and he heartily echoed them as one 
of the representatives of the people of this Province. He 
thanked his friends from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for 
their kindness in coming there to give them, at this critical 
period in their history, the benefit of those sentiments. And 
he knew little of public opinion in the British Empire, if 
before this day six weeks these words, uttered on the 
Welland, did not meet the eye of every leading statesman 
of England, whether in or out of the Government. He 
did not know that, viewed in this light, there had been 
any public meeting of more importance during the time 
he had been a resident of Canada. He was glad also 
to hear the testimony which had been paid to the worth 
of the late representative of this Division, the Hon. 
Hamilton Merritt. He could not utter a better wish 
for his hon. friend beside him (Mr. Currie), than that he 
might prove himself a worthy successor of the enterpris- 
ing, clear-headed, laborious old man, whose place he was 
about to take in the Legislative Council. Mr. Merritt, 
like all other human beings, might have had defects in 
his character, but there was one defect which certainly 
he had not. He had neither a small heart nor a small 
head. Nature did not make him on a small block, and 
he made good use of the large quantity of good stuff 
that went originally to his composition. As long as the 
Welland Canal connects Lakes Erie and Ontario, as long 
as Niagara Suspension Bridge remains a monument of 
engineering skill, so long will the name of Hamilton Merritt 
continue inseparably associated with Western enterprise. 
But he was not simply a western Canadian ; he was a 
North American. He was an American by birth, but in 
Mr. Merritt' s active days) the people of Canada were not 
badly bitten with the mania of anti- Americanism. If not 



ADDKESSES ON VAEIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 41 

any more American then than now, we did not go rabid 
against any one whose birthplace was on the other side of 
the lakes. It was not in the Niagara District alone that 
Mr. Merritt was interested. He was as much interested in 
the prosperity of the port of Quebec as in that of Toronto, 
or St. Catherine's, or either of the termini of the canal. He 
saw, as every man of far vision saw, that whatever benefited 
one part of our common country, must ultimately benefit 
every part of it ; and he could only wish that the new 
member for the Niagara Division, in assisting in the future 
legislation of Canada, would approach all questions of 
commercial intercourse and internal improvement with as 
large and liberal a spirit as his venerated predecessor had 
done. It had been said that last year they had had a 
meeting of condolence, and that this year they had a meet- 
ing of congratulation, an important change having taken 
place in the affairs of this Province in the meantime. He 
would not, at a gathering of this description, go into 
questions of party politics, but he would say he believed 
there had been a most important change effected. After 
some allusions to recent ministerial changes, Mr. McGee 
next referred to the rejected Militia Bill of the late Govern- 
ment, and said it was not without considerable difficulty 
that he had voted against its second reading, bad as 
many of its details were. He believed it necessary that 
there should be a certain amount of arms and ammunition 
in the hands of our own people for the protection of our 
frontier — not against a national invasion, — against that we 
must have other remedies — but against marauding bands, 
who might disturb the peace of our frontier, on the dis- 
banding of the present large standing army of the United 
States. But, unfortunately for our neighbours, there ap- 
peared little likelihood of that disbanding for some time to 
come. The struggle was, on both sides, he regretted to see, 
when it was people speaking our own language who were 
engaged in it, assuming the character of a war of extermi- 
nation. His own sympathies had been and still were with 
the North, as the legitimate Government. But no wise 
people would trust to the forbearance of its neighbours as 



42 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

the safeguard of its liberties, and Parliament did well, as 
matters stood last spring, in voting the sum it did to 
supplement the defences of the Province in aid of the effort of 
the Imperial Government. He was also quite willing to aid 
in the construction of such facilities of communication as 
would give the British Government free ingress into this 
territory at all seasons of the year, or to do any other 
reasonable thing that would give satisfaction to the reason- 
able feeling of England, and at the same time not beggar 
and bankrupt the people of Canada. Like Ealstaff, lie 
would do nothing upon compulsion, he would not be 
driven into any course by those speeches in the House of 
Lords to which reference had been made by Mr. Howe; 
but it was our interest as well as our duty to do everything 
we could to satisfy the people of England that we were 
ready to .bear our reasonable share of the burden of the 
defence of the Province. This position he would have 
illustrated by his vote last spring, had he been in the 
House, and he would be prepared to illustrate it again in 
the coming session of Parliament. The Government, in 
providing for the defence of the country, were prepared to 
go to the limit of their ability, and the limit of their 
ability was the measure of their responsibility. Mr. McGee 
then referred to the signs of wealth and abundance among 
the farmers which had met his eye in travelling through 
the country, and made an eloquent appeal that some por- 
tion of that abundance should be sent for the relief of the 
suffering operatives in the manufacturing districts of 
England. Such an act on the part of Canadians would be 
the best reply they could give to the accusations which had 
been recently made in England against them. 



CHARACTER OF CHAMPLAIN, THE FIRST CAPTAIN- 
GENERAL OF CANADA : 
THE FRENCH-CANADIANS UNDER FRANCE AND 
GREAT BRITAIN. 

An Address delivered at Fort Popham, State of Maine, 29th 
September, 1862.* 

The memory of Sieur de Champlain, the fearless navigator and accom- 
plished statesman ; the first to explore and designate these shores ; whose 
plans of Empire, more vast and sagacious than any of his time, failed of 
success only through the short-sightedness of his sovereign, in allowing the 
Atlantic shores of New England to fall into the hands of his rivals, thereby 
changing the history of the New World. 

Hon. Me. McGee, President of the Executive Council 
of Canada, addressed the assemblage in response to this 
sentiment. He said : I beg to assure you, Mr. President, 
and the gentlemen of the Maine Historical Society, who 
have done me the honour to invite me here, that I feel it a 
very great privilege to be a spectator and a participant in 
the instructive, retributive ceremonial of this day. This 
peninsula of Sabino must become, if it is not now, classic 
ground; and this 29th of August, the true era of the 
establishment of our language and race on this continent, 
one of the most cherished fasti of the English-speaking 
people of North America. It is, on general grounds, an 
occasion hardly less interesting to the colonies still English, 
than to the citizens of Maine, and, therefore, I beg to 
repeat in your presence the gratification I feel in being 

* This was the commencement of an interesting series of annual celebra- 
tions, observed with great eclat, of the foundation of " the first colony on 
the shores of New England." The place is the peninsula of Sabino, at the 
mouth of the Kenneheck river ; the founder was Captain George Popham, 
brother of Chief Justice Popham, and the time 19th of August (old style), 
1607. 



44 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

allowed to join in the first, of what I trust will prove but 
the first, of an interminable series of such celebrations. I 
would be very insensible, Sir, to the character in which I 
have been so cordially presented to this assembly, if I did 
not personally acknowledge it ; and I should be, I conceive, 
unworthy the position I happen to occupy as a member of 
the Canadian Government, if I did not feel still more the 
honour you have paid to Canada, in the remembrance you 
have made of her first Governor and Captain-General, the 
Sieur de Champlain. That celebrated person was in truth, 
not only in point of time, but in the comprehension of his 
views, the audacity of his projects, and the celebrity of his 
individual career, the first statesman of Canada; and no 
one pretending to the character of a Canadian statesman 
could feel otherwise than honoured and gratified, when 
Champlain's name is invoked, publicly or privately, in his 
presence. We have no fear that the reputation of our 
great Founder will not stand the severest test of his- 
torical research; we have no fear that his true greatness 
will dwindle by comparison with the rest of the Atlantic 
leaders — the chiefs of the renowned sea-chivalry, of whom 
we have already heard such eloquent mention. All Cana- 
dians ardently desire that he should be better known — be 
well known — and perhaps, Mr. President, you will permit 
me to indicate some of the traits in the career, to point to 
some of the traits in the character, which halo for us 
for ever the name and memory of the Sieur de Champlain. 

What we esteem most of all other features in the life of 
our [Founder, is that chief virtue of all eminent men — his 
indomitable fortitude; and next to that we revere the 
amazing versatility and resources of the man. Originally 
a naval officer, he had voyaged to the West Indies and to 
Mexico, and had written a memoir, lately discovered at 
Dieppe, and edited both in France and England, advocating 
among other things the artificial connection of the Atlantic 
and Pacific Oceans. Prom the quarter-deck we trace him 
to the counting-rooms of the merchants of Eouen and Saint 
Malo, who first entrusted him in 1603, with the command 
of a commercial enterprise of which Canada was the field. 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 45 

Prom the service of the merchants of Kouen, Dieppe, and 
Saint Malo, we trace him to the service of his Sovereign — 
Henry IY. For several successive years we find his flag 
glancing at all points along this rock-bound coast on 
which we are now assembled, from Port Eoyal to Massachu- 
setts Bay. "Whenever we do not find it here, we may be 
certain it has advanced into the interior, that it is unfurled 
at Quebec, at Montreal, or towards the sources of the 
Hudson and the Mohawk. We will find that this versatile 
sailor has become in time a founder of cities, a negotiator 
of treaties with barbarous tribes, an author, a discoverer. 
As a discoverer, he was the first European to ascend the 
Eichelieu, which he named after the patron of his latter 
years — the all-powerful Cardinal. He was the first to 
traverse that beautiful lake, now altogether your own, 
which makes his name so familiar to Americans; he was 
the first to ascend our great central river, the Ottawa, as 
far north as Lake Nippising, and he was the first to dis- 
cover what he very justly calls " the fresh-water sea " of 
Lake Ontario. His place as an American discoverer is, 
therefore, amongst the first; while his claims as a coloniser 
rest on the firm foundations of Montreal and Quebec, and 
his project — extraordinary for the age — of uniting the 
Atlantic with the Pacific by an artificial channel of com- 
munication. As a legislator, we have not yet recovered, if 
we ever shall recover, the ordinances he is known to have 
promulgated; but as an author we have his narrative of 
transactions in New Prance, his voyage to Mexico, his 
treatise on navigation, and some other papers. As a 
diplomatist we have the Pranco-Indian alliances, which he 
founded, and which lasted a hundred and fifty years on this 
continent, and which exercised so powerful an influence, 
not only on American but on European affairs. To him 
also it was mainly owing that Canada, Acadia, and Cape 
Breton were reclaimed by, and restored to Erance under 
the treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye, in 1632. As to the 
moral qualities, our Eounder was brave almost to rashness. 
He would cast himself with a single European follower in 
the midst of savage enemies, and more than once his life 



46 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

was endangered by the excess of his confidence and his 
courage. He was eminently social in his habits — as his 
order of le Ion temps — in which every man of his associates 
was for one day host to all his comrades, and commanded 
in turn in those agreeable encounters of which we have just 
had a slight skirmish here. He was sanguine as became 
an adventurer, and self-denying as became a hero. He 
served under De Monts, who for a time succeeded to his 
honours and office, as cheerfully as he had ever acted for 
himself, and in the end he made a friend of his rival. He 
encountered, as Columbus and many others had done, 
mutiny and impatience in his own followers, but he tri- 
umphed over the bad passions of men as completely as he 
triumphed over the ocean and the wilderness. 

He touched the extremes of human experience among 
diverse characters and nations. At one time he sketched 
plans of civilised aggrandisement for Henry IY. and Biche- 
lieu ; at another, he planned schemes of wild warfare with 
Huron chiefs and Algonquin braves. He united, in a 
most rare degree, the faculties of action and reflection, 
and like all highly reflective minds, his thoughts, long che- 
rished in secret, ran often into the mould of maxims, and 
some of them would form the fittest possible inscriptions to 
be engraven upon his monument. 

When the merchants of Quebec grumbled at the cost of 
fortifying that place, he said : — " It is best not to obey the 
passions of men ; they are but for a season ; it is our duty 
to regard the future." With all his love of good-fellow- 
ship and society, he was, what seems to some inconsistent 
with it, sincerely and enthusiastically religious ; among his 
maxims are these two — that " The salvation of one soul is 
of more value than the conquest of an empire," and, that 
"Kings ought not to think of extending their authority 
over idolatrous nations, except for the purpose of subjecting 
them to Jesus Christ." 

Such, Mr. President, are, in brief, the attributes of the 
man you 'have chosen to honour ; and I leave it for this 
company to say, whether in all that constitutes true great- 
ness the first Governor and Captain-General of Canada 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 47 

need fear comparison with any of the illustrious brother- 
hood who projected and founded our North American 
States. Count over all their honoured names; enumerate 
their chief actions ; let each community assign to its own 
his meed of eloquent and reverent remembrance ; but 
among them, from North to South, there will be no se- 
condary place assigned to the Sieur de Champlain. 

Mr. President, you have added to the sentiment in honour 
of Champlain, an allusion and an inference as to the dif- 
ferent results of the Trench and English colonial policy, on 
which you will probably expect me to offer an observation 
or two before resuming my seat. Champlain' s project 
originally was, no doubt, to make this Atlantic coast the 
basis of French power in the New World. His Govern- 
ment claimed the continent down to the 40th parallel, 
which, as you know, intersects Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
Illinois, while the English claimed up to the 45th, which 
intersects Nova Scotia and Canada. 

"Within these five degrees of latitude the pretensions of 
France were long zealously maintained in diplomacy, but 
were never practically asserted, except in the 44th and 45th, 
by colonisation. I am not prepared to dispute the inference 
that the practical abandonment, by Erance, of the coast dis- 
coveries of her early navigators, south of 45, may have 
changed, as you say, " the destiny of the New World/'' It 
may be so ; it may be, also, that we have not reached the 
point of time in which to speak positively as to the per- 
manent result i for Divine Providence moves in His orbit 
by long and insensible curves, of which even the clearest- 
sighted men can discern in their time but a very limited 
section. But we know, as of the past, that the French 
power in the reign of Louis XIII. and XI Y. was prac- 
tically based on the St. Lawrence, with a Southern aspect, 
rather than on the Atlantic, with a Western aspect. All 
the consequences of this change of Champlain's plan and 
policy I am not prepared here so much as to allude to, 
for that would carry me where I have no wish to go — into 
international issues, not yet exhausted. 

I may be permitted, however, to question that French 



48 BRITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

influence, as developed in its Boman Catholic religion, its 
Roman law and its historical fascinations, was ever really- 
circumscribed to Canada, or was really extinguished, as has 
been usually assumed, by the fall of Quebec. It is amazing 
to find in the Colonial records of the period between the 
death of Champlain and the death of Montcalm, a century 
and a quarter, how important a part that handful of secluded 
French colonists played in North American affairs. In 
1629, Champlain could have carried off all his colonists in 
"a single ship"; more than a hundred years later they 
were estimated at some 65,000 souls; in the Seven Years' 
War they were, according to Mr. Bancroft, but as " one to 
fourteen" of the English colonists. The part played by 
the Canadians in war, under the Trench Kings, was out of 
all proportion to their numbers ; it was a brilliant but pro- 
digal part; it left their country exposed to periodical 
scarcity, without wealth, without commerce, without poli- 
tical liberty. They were ruled by a policy strictly martial 
to the very last, and though Richelieu, Colbert, De la 
Gallissionere, and other supreme minds saw, in their " New 
Prance," great commercial capabilities, the prevailing policy, 
especially under Louis XIY. and XV., was to make and 
keep Canada a mere military colony. It is instructive to 
find a man of such high intelligence as Montcalm justifying 
that policy in his despatches to the President de Mole on 
the very eve of the surrender of Quebec. The Canadians, 
in his opinion, ought not to be allowed to manufacture, 
lest they should become unmanageable like the English 
colonists, but, on the contrary, they should be kept to 
martial exercises, that they might subserve the interests 
of Erance in her Transatlantic wars with England. Such 
was the policy which fell at Quebec with its last Erench 
Governor and Captain-General; a policy, I need hardly 
say, which no intelligent Canadian now looks back to with 
any other feelings than those of regret and disapprobation. 
A hundred years have elapsed since the international con- 
test to which you refer was consummated at Quebec, and 
Canada to-day, under the mild and equitable sway of her 
fourth English sovereign, has to point to trophies of 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 49 

peaceful progress, not less glorious, and far more service- 
able, than any achieved by our predecessors who were 
subjects to the .French kings. The French-speaking popu- 
lation, which from 1608 till 1760 had not reached 100,000, 
from 1750 to 1860 has multiplied to 880,000. Upper 
Canada, a wilderness as Champlain found it and Montcalm 
left it, has a population exceeding Massachusetts, of as fine 
a yeomanry as ever stirred the soil of the earth. If French 
Canada points with justifiable pride to its ancient battle- 
field, English Canada points with no less pleasure to its 
newly : reclaimed harvest fields ; if the old regime is typified 
by the strong walls of Quebec, the monument of the new 
era may be seen in the great bridge which spans the 
St. Lawrence within view of the city I represent, and 
whose four and twenty piers may each stand for one hour 
sacred to every traveller who steams through its sounding 
tube on his way from the Atlantic to the far West. 

In conclusion, Mr. President, allow me again to assure 
you that I have listened with great pleasure to the speeches 
of this day — especially to the address of my old and 
esteemed friend (Hon. Mr. Poor). I trust the sentiments 
uttered here, at the mouth of the Kennebec, in Maine, will 
go home to England, and show our English relatives that 
the American people, unmoved by any selfish motive, are 
capable of doing full and entire justice to the best qualities 
of the English character. I am sure nothing was farther 
from your minds than to turn this historical commemora- 
tion to any political account — and certainly I could not 
have done myself the pleasure of being here if I had ima- 
gined any such intention. But after all the angry taunts 
which have been lately exchanged between England and 
America, I cannot but think this solemn acknowledgment 
of national affiliation, made on so memorable a spot as Eort 
Popham, and made in so cordial a spirit, must have a 
healing and a happy effect. We have been sitting under 
your authority, Mr. President, in the High Court of 
Posterity — we have summoned our ancestors from their 
ancient graves — we have dealt out praise and blame among 
them — I trust without violence to truth or injustice to the 



50 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

Dead : for the dead have their rights as the living have : 
injustice to them is one of the worst forms of all injustice, 
and undue praise to the undeserving is the worst injustice 
to the virtuous and meritorious actors in the great events 
of former ages. 

When we leave this place we shall descend from the 
meditative world of the Past to mingle in the active world 
of the Present, where each man must bear his part and 
defend his post. Let me say for myself, Mr. President, 
and I think I may add I speak in this respect the general 
settled sentiment of my countrymen of Canada, when I say 
that in the extraordinary circumstances which have arisen 
for you, and for us also, in North America, there is no 
other feeling in Canada than a feeling of deep and sincere 
sympathy and friendliness towards the United States. As 
men loyal to our own institutions, we honour loyalty every- 
where ; as freemen we are interested in all free States ; as 
neighbours we are especially interested in your peace, 
prosperity, and welfare. We are all anxious to exchange 
everything with you except injustice and misrepresentation ; 
that is a species of commerce which — even when followed 
by the fourth estate (pointing to the reporters at his right) 
— I trust we will alike discourage, even to the verge of 
prohibition. Not only as a Canadian, but as one who was 
originally an emigrant to these shores as an Irishman, with 
so many of my original countrymen resident among you, I 
shall never cease to pray that this kindred people may 
always find in the future, as they always have found in the 
past, brave men to lead them in battle, wise men to guide 
them in council, and eloquent men like my honourable 
friend yonder (Hon. John A. Poor), to celebrate their 
exploits and their wisdom from generation to generation. 



OTTAWA, THE PROBABLE CAPITAL OF AN 
UNITED BRITISH AMERICA. 

Reply to a toast at a Complimentary Supper given by the Saint 
Patrick's Literary Society op Ottawa, October 14th, 1862. 

Mr. McGee, after a few introductory remarks, of a per- 
sonal nature, said : — And now you will no doubt expect 
me to allude briefly to some other subjects in which the 
people of Canada and the citizens of Ottawa are more 
deeply interested than in the personnel of the Administra- 
tion. I suppose you would like to hear my frank opinion 
on the subject of the Government Buildings in this city. 
Well, gentlemen, I was one of the last to admit the pro- 
priety of reference which was made on that subject ; but 
having admitted and adopted that decision as part of the 
policy of the present Administration — having done so in 
perfect good faith, without any ulterior views whatever — 
I would be the last to consent to reopen the question. 
Ottawa was not my choice, but it has been selected by 
Her Majesty, that decision has been frankly adopted by 
the present Government, and it will be frankly and fully 
carried out. There is only one remote possibility of dis- 
turbing that decision, and that might follow if the members 
for Ottawa constituencies allowed themselves to be made 
use of by any party combination. If they allowed the 
Ottawa question to be made use of as a party question, 
they might drive others to reopen the question ; but unless 
it is revived by some such error as that — and it is your 
interest to see that no such error is committed by your 
representatives — Ottawa may rely upon it that the present 
Administration will never go back of their word. Yes, 
gentlemen, not only may your city become the Seat of 

E 2 



52 BEITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

Government of Canada,, if your interests are properly repre- 
sented, but in after times of all British America, between 
the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. I suppose 
you have all seen in the public journals a good deal of dis- 
cussion as to the late Intercolonial Conference at Quebec, 
and a projected Intercolonial railway. Well, gentlemen, 
all I can tell you on that head is that that newspaper dis- 
cussion must necessarily be premature, because no man at 
this moment, in any of the Colonies, or in England, can 
possibly say what precise shape that project may ultimately 
take — what route may be chosen— what distances involved 
— on what terms — under what conditions — subject to what 
management — that road will be made, if it is made, within 
a few years. The discussion must be premature, because 
the project is inchoate — because the negotiation has merely 
taken its first preliminary form — because, as a negotiation, 
it can only be matured in London, by and with the consent 
of the Imperial authorities. Those who desire to avoid rash 
conclusions and needless retractions will suspend their 
judgments till the project has matured and received its last 
form from negotiation, and then if it can be shown to be 
necessary to strengthen the connection with the mother 
country — if it can be shown to be necessary to our self- 
preservation as a British American people — if the liability 
can be limited, and the proportions fairly adjusted — I, for 
one, would not shrink from going to the people of Canada, 
from end to end of the Province, with this test question : 
" You think the connection valuable to Canada ; what will 
you pay for it?" Is it worth to you five-twelfths of an 
iron road four hundred miles long ? Is it worth the outlay 
on an additional link of railway of the distance, say from 
Montreal to Kingston, or thereabouts? Tor, gentlemen, 
depend upon it, we cannot in the North America of our 
day — in this new American age which announces its advent 
with salvos of artillery — we cannot go on as we have gone 
on in the piping times of peace. We have three choices 
before us : either to continue the Connection, or to set up 
for ourselves, or to drift into annexation witli the Northern 
Democracy. Not one per cent, of the people of Canada at 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 53 

present desire annexation ; not one per cent, of the people 
feel that the hour has come for our entering on an inde- 
pendent political existence ; and, therefore, practically the 
only choice left us is to provide for the proper maintenance, 
on our side, of the Imperial connection. I say frankly I 
place this alternative on no impalpable ground ; but I do 
place it on the clear ground of common sense, of self- 
interest, of self-preservaticii, as well as on the sense of duty 
and conscientious obligation. I put it to you on Canadian, 
rather than on Imperial ground. I say the connection is 
worth paying for, and the only questions are, whether as to 
a militia or a military road, what can you pay, and when, 
and how, will you pay it ? But, gentlemen, I do not rest 
our railroad connection with the Lower Provinces on mili- 
tary reasons only ; there are political reasons, and there are 
commercial reasons as well. As to the commercial reasons, 
the three Provinces are fully committed to the principle of 
inter-colonial free trade, which would bring us 800,000 
more customers, and if we should unfortunately lose the 
Eeciprocity Treaty in 1865, would give Upper Canada a 
breadstuff's market, which takes as much from the United 
States now, as the United States do from Canada. As to 
the intrinsic value of the new country to be opened, I have 
the authority of a gentleman whose ability to judge cannot 
be questioned in Canada — Mr. "Walter Shanly — who has 
been over the ground this last summer, and made very full 
notes of his tour, that with the exception of a belt of some 
30 miles on the immediate border of Canada and New 
Brunswick, the remainder is generally as fine a country as 
any in North America. And this eastern enterprise may 
very fairly be looked upon as an additional motive and 
guarantee for western extension to the Pacific. Before I 
had a seat in Parliament, in this very city, several years 
ago, in speaking of the " Future of Canada," I expressed 
the same views I do now, when I say that the route by 
Lake Huron and Lake Superior to British Central America 
— to the prairie country too long monopolized by the 268 
stockholders of the Hudson's Bay Company, — to that 
country rich in hides, in furs, in tallow, in salt, and ni 



54 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION". 

mineral wealth — and rich, too, in agricultural capabilities — 
ought to be opened up, and must lead westward through the 
Ottawa valley. But we can hardly have the aid of a British 
ministry or of British capital for Western extension, if we 
underprice the connection, or refuse to begin at that end of 
it which lies next to England, and is more immediately re- 
quired to maintain the connection. As to the general 
political reasons for the railroad, I think they will be found 
to be, on farther observation, gentlemen, of the utmost 
weight, deserving the most careful consideration from the 
people of Canada. We are, for fully five months in the 
year, as much "an inland kingdom," as that Bohemia 
whose castles, even Corporal Trim was forced to admit, 
" could not stand by the sea unless God willed it." We 
now get to and from the Atlantic, five months in every 
year, by the grace and favour of the State of Maine ; but 
unless Maine were at some future day to join us politically, 
that relation between us cannot be counted on, from year 
to year. Let us reason by experience, and see what has 
been the condition of other inland states of which we know 
something, on the continent of Europe. Take the two 
most conspicuous examples, the two great German powers 
Austria and Prussia. Why does Austria hold on so tena- 
ciously to her Italian provinces ? Because it is only through 
them she touches the sea. It is only through Venice, 
Trieste, and Eiume, that Austria exists as a maritime or 
commercial power ; and though I do not know what it cost 
to construct the railway from Yienna to Trieste, through a 
very difficult country, I know well what lesson that road 
ought to teach us. It teaches the lesson of empire, in 
which Austrian statesmen have not seldom been the teachers 
of older states than ours. Look again at Prussia in the 
Baltic. What has been her expenditure between Berlin 
and Dantzic? Why does she at this moment vote 
12,000,000 francs for Jahl, and 25,000,000 francs for Jash- 
mund, in the isle of Eugen ? To have outlets to the sea, 
through her own territory, to secure safe ports, to have her 
own avenues into the common exchange of all nations — the 
open ocean. Now, whether the British connection is to 



ADDKESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 55 

outlast this century or the next, I cannot, as a Canadian 
representative, observant of the signs of the times, and our 
present peculiar circumstances, be any party to refusing for 
this country a sea-coast and outports — if they do not cost 
too much — which any civilised inland power in the world 
would give the lives of armies and millions of treasure to 
secure. I would stand rebuked and dumb in the presence 
of the Austrian and the Prussian if I were capable of such 
folly ; it would be a stolid policy, more worthy of the dark 
interior of Africa, than of this region of acute and ready 
mental resources. I know it is said, the motto of our 
government is and ought to be, the one word, " Retrench- 
ment \" Gentlemen, that is an excellent word — Retrench- 
ment — but I will follow it with another, not hostile, not 
inconsistent with it, the word Development. Retrenchment 
is the immediate duty, the duty of the day and the hour, — - 
but a government must lead as well as save, it must march 
as well as fortify, it must originate plans for the future, as 
well as correct the errors of the past. The eventful oppor- 
tunity for British America is now ; the tide in our affairs is 
at the flood, we must act as well as examine, advance as 
well as retrench. It is for us to appropriate the olive 
branch of peaceful progress, which the great Republic has 
relinquished for the blood-stained laurel ; it is for us to 
unite the Atlantic and the Pacific, and to lay broad and 
deep on this soil the foundations of a thoroughly constitu- 
tional government. I see here many of the young men of 
the city and neighbourhood, and to the young men of 
British North America I look with every hope that they 
will sustain and maintain the programme of national de- 
velopment in connection with Great Britain, which it is the 
aim of my colleagues to inaugurate. The future belongs to 
them, and they belong to their successors ; if a generous 
far-sighted British American policy is to triumph in Canada 
and the sister Provinces, the young men must be up and 
doing ; if they will follow, I venture to promise they shall 
have a lead — a lead which will make Canada a great 
country, and Ottawa the capital of a United British 
America. 



THE COMMON INTERESTS OF BRITISH 
NORTH AMERICA. 

An Address delivered at the Temperance Hall, Halifax, Nova 
Scotia, July 21st, 1863. 

Hon. Mr. McGee said : — Mr. Mayor, Ladies, and Gen- 
tlemen, — This meeting has grown out of a very simple cir- 
cumstance — the desire of several gentlemen, some of them 
very old friends, to hear from a Canadian representative 
what was generally thought in his province, as well as what 
views he himself took, on the subject of the long-talked-of 
Intercolonial Railway. The invitation was conveyed to me 
in the kindest terms, by gentlemen for whom I have the 
highest respect; but it would be folly in me to conceal 
that I felt a great deal of diffidence as to my own power to 
meet their expectations. I felt it not only from the nature 
of the subject to be spoken of — whose very magnitude was 
embarrassing — but also somewhat on personal grounds, as 
to what might be right and proper for me, as a Canadian 
representative, to say ; but I nerved myself by saying, " If 
we can have no other direct intercourse, either of trade or 
travel, with our fellow-citizens of Nova Scotia at present, 
at all events let us have the intercourse of free speech and 
courteous personal consultation." I propose, then, to submit 
to you the views, so far as I understand them, of very many 
in Canada, on the subject of this projected Colonial con- 
nection, with some remarks on the same subject which, 
perhaps, are more personal to myself. We are of opinion, 
very many of us, in the first place, that we cannot go on 
much longer — not many months perhaps, not many seasons 
certainly — as we have been in the past. Great necessities 
have arisen within the present decade, both on this and the 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 57 

other side of the Atlantic, which seem to say to us, in 
Canada, and to all British America, " Look well to your- 
selves ; consider carefully the times that now are ; observe 
well that these are not the times of old ; take counsel of 
your new Present as to how you may best confront your 
new Future." We may, ladies and gentlemen, be all 
wrong in thus translating into words the signs of our 
times, but with this warning voice ringing hourly in my 
ears, I cannot, for one, keep my eyes fixed only on local or 
sectional objects ; nor shall I to-night treat the great sub- 
ject you have called on me to discuss, in any local, or 
sectional, or one-province spirit. I should feel ashamed of 
myself if I were capable of mingling in the discussion of a 
subject of this description, anything — the least tinge — of 
the partisan; neither, I am quite sure, would you receive 
my arguments, if I were to calculate them exactly for the 
meridian of Halifax. Moreover, I feel that I must speak 
of, as well as to, British America, — that the free press of 
Nova Scotia will carry what I may say to the free press of 
Canada, — and that the voice raised here to-night on behalf 
of Colonial unity, feeble as it is, will be audible, within a 
month, to the farthest western settler who hears the wolf 
bark by night beyond Lake Huron. Now, what, in outline, 
is this British America of which we speak ? We are four 
millions of nominal British subjects dotted over a seventh 
part of the continent. I say nominal British subjects, for 
we enjoy within ourselves absolute self-government, with an 
indefinite and sentimental, rather than a practical or onerous 
allegiance, to a distant, non-resident sovereign. 

It is to be allowed, however, that there are two excep- 
tions to this state of absolute self-government — the auto- 
cratic power of the Government of British Columbia,* and 
the close oligarchy of the Hudson's Bay. And, as if to 
show how thoroughly the rights of the Crown are assumed 
to be extinguished in the soil of all these immense regions, 
we learn, only within a week, that that Hudson's Bay Com- 



* This complaint, perhaps overstated at the time, lias since been 
remedied. 



58 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

pany have actually sold the proprietorship (and received 
the pretty luck-penny of £100,000 down) of somewhere 
about 500,000 square miles of Her Majesty's dominions in 
North America, which the sellers pretend to hold in fee by 
a title derived from King Charles II. Distant as that ter- 
ritory is from us, far in the future as its ultimate destinies 
may repose, I am sure the Imperial Government will have 
something to say about its sale, and that we in Canada will 
have something to say about its delivery. I know nothing 
but what has been stated in the newspapers as to this sale, 
but I instance it here, at once, to call attention to the 
statement, and at the same time to illustrate the anomalous 
state of our allegiance, where one private company can 
propose to sell and another to buy a British dominion as 
large as all England, Prance, and Germany. A single 
glance at the physical geography of the whole of British 
America will show that it forms, quite as much in structure 
as in size, one of the most valuable sections of the globe. 
Along this eastern coast the Almighty pours the broad 
Gulf Stream, nursed within the tropics, to temper the 
rigours of our air, to irrigate our " deep-sea pastures," to 
combat and to subdue the powerful Polar stream, which 
would otherwise in a single night fill all our gulfs and 
harbours with a barrier of perpetual ice. Par towards the 
west, beyond the wonderful lakes which excite the admira- 
tion of every traveller, the winds that lift the water-bearing 
clouds from the Gulf of Cortez, and waft them northward, 
are met by counter-currents, which capsize them just where 
they are essential — beyond Lake Superior, on both slopes 
of the Hocky Mountains. These are the limits of that 
climate which has been so much misrepresented — a climate 
which rejects every pestilence, which breeds no malaria ; a 
climate under which the oldest stationary population — the 
French Canadians — have multiplied without the infusion 
of new blood, from Prance or elsewhere, from a stock of 
80,000 in 1760, to a people of 880,000 in 1860. I need 
not, however, have gone so far for an illustration of the 
fostering effects of our climate on the European race, when 
I look on the sons and daughters of this Peninsula — natives 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 59 

of the soil for two, three, and four generations ; when I see 
the lithe and manly forms on all sides around and before 
me ; when I see, especially, who they are that adorn that 
gallery (alluding to the ladies), the argument is over, the 
case is closed. If we descend from the climate to the soil, 
we find it sown by nature with those precious forests, fitted 
to erect cities, to build fleets, and to warm the hearths of 
many generations. We have the isotherm of wheat on the 
Red River, on the Ottawa,, and on the St. John; root crops 
everywhere ; coal in Cape Breton and on the Saskatchewan ; 
iron (with us) from the St. Maurice to the Trent; in 
Canada, the copper-bearing rocks, at frequent intervals, 
from Huron to Gaspe; gold in Columbia and in Nova 
Scotia ; salt, again, and hides, in the Red River region ; 
fisheries, inland and seaward, unequalled. Such is a rough 
sketch — a rapid enumeration of the resources of this land 
of our children's inheritance. Now, what needs it, this 
country, with a lake and river and seaward system sufficient 
to accommodate all its own and all its neighbours' com- 
merce ? what needs such a country for its future ? It 
needs a population sufficient in numbers, in spirit, and in 
capacity, to become its masters ; and this population need, 
as all civilised men need, religious and civil liberty, unity, 
authority, free intercourse, commerce, security, and law. 

As to population : the young ladies probably would not 
object that desirable young men should be somewhat more 
plentiful than they now are in these provinces. What 
would be a fair American ratio of population for our terri- 
tory, covering, as it does, a third part of the continent ? 
Twenty millions of a total would give us only five inhabit- 
ants to the square mile — our square miles are four mil- 
lions — a degree of denseness which even a backwoodsman 
would not find inconveniently close. Of the liberties en- 
joyed throughout all our part of the continent, it is to be 
observed, that with the temporary exceptions — Hudson's 
Bay and British Columbia — they are in the hands of the 
people's elected representatives. We need have no fear for 
our liberties if our representatives do their duty ; but as to 
the other social and political needs of which I have made 



60 BRITISH- AMEBIC AN UNION. 

mention,, that one about which I feel just at present most 
anxious, is authority. I am told I have been taunted a 
good deal in some leading American journals for my fre- 
quently expressed anxiety on this head. I have been 
taunted as a Liberal, as if lawful authority were incon- 
sistent with liberality ; and, as an Irishman by origin, I 
have not been spared. I answer, Mr. Mayor, to all these 
flippant deliverances, that if I lived in a state of society in 
which liberty was in danger from the encroachments or 
excesses of authority, I should stand fast by liberty ; but, 
whereas, in our new world one plant is indigenous, and 
grows wild all round us, and the other must be introduced 
from afar and carefully cultivated, that other equally essen- 
tial to the very existence of good government, I choose to 
concern myself most for that which we most need, leaving 
that which every public man is sure to cultivate, to the 
charge of its innumerable other guardians. I answer, as 
an Irishman proud of the name, that in walking in this 
path I am in the right line of succession with the most 
illustrious Irish statesmen of the past — O'Connell, Plunkett, 
Curran, Grattan, and, above all, Burke : their trophies are 
found on every arch of the temple of the Constitution — 
their effigies are carved upon the very shrines of its sanc- 
tuary. They were statesmen whom the world knew ; they 
were as jealous of authority as they were vigilant for free- 
dom : what names has the school that opposes them pro- 
duced to equal the least among that illustrious succession ? 
I do feel anxious for the consolidation of our provincial 
liberties — for the timely planting of a well-denned supreme 
authority among us, and, therefore, I adopt cordially the 
only practical form of arrangement which I can by any sign 
discover — the Union of all the Colonies, under the regency 
or vice-regency of a royal Prince, or other Imperial ruler. 
It will, perhaps, be within the recollection of those who hear 
me, — I rejoice to see around me some of the same friends 
to-night, — that several years ago, in this very room, I advo- 
cated, on commercial and political grounds, this same good 
cause of Colonial union. Is it not obvious, ladies and gen- 
tlemen, — you, to whom I am all but a stranger, — that if I 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 61 

did not believe there were very good arguments in favour 
of such an union, I would not presume, after a lapse of 
years, to take up, on the same spot, the same cause, before 
the same community ? These arguments, to my mind, are 
so numerous that I shall be obliged, as formerly, to proceed 
by way of selection — touching only on a few of the most 
prominent and popular. 

First. There is the argument from Association. What 
is taught us by the whole history of our times ? That the 
greatest results are produced by the association of small 
means. In banking, in commerce, in science, association 
has been tried, #nd found in general to work wonders. 
The very Intercolonial Eailroad, of which I am by-and-by 
to speak, is a proof of the absolute necessity of intercolonial 
association. Canada cannot build it alone; you cannot do 
it without Canada. What then is the obvious remedy ? 
Is it not the union of our joint credit, skill, and resources 
for the accomplishment of a common purpose, which singly 
none of us, nor all of us, can hope to effect ? 

Second. There is the commercial argument. Why should 
we, colonies of the same stock, provinces of the same em- 
pire, dominions under the same flag, be cutting each other's 
throats with razors called tariffs? Here, for example, is 
my overcoat of Canada tweed, which, imported into New 
Brunswick, is charged 15 per cent., and in Nova Scotia 
10 per cent. — New Brunswick being 5 per cent, worse 
than you are. Now, the British Islands and all united 
states and kingdoms have long found it absolutely neces- 
sary to have within themselves the freest possible exchange 
of commodities. Why should not we here ? Why should 
we not have untaxed admission to your 800,000 market, 
and you to our three million market ? I confess I can see 
no good reason to the contrary. At the Quebec Con- 
ference,* over which I had the honour to preside, we 
decided that intercolonial free-trade should follow at once 
on the making of the railway, and I look back with satis- 
faction to having drafted that compact. 

* The Intercolonial railway conference of September, 1862. 



62 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

Third. There is the immigration argument. I was much 
struck, speaking on this point, with a note to an article in, 
I think, " Macculloch's Commercial Dictionary/' in which 
immigrants bound for these Lower Provinces were warned 
not to take shipping to Canada, because it was as hard to 
get here from Quebec to these lower ports, as from Liver- 
pool ! Practically, every one knows that an emigrant 
ship's cargo is a mixed cargo. Say there are 400 persons 
aboard one of those ships arriving at New York, 100 will 
disperse towards the manufacturing districts of New Eng- 
land, another 100 to the mineral districts of Pennsylvania, 
while the other half will be divided between the landing- 
place and the agricultural West. The wide market makes 
the full ship. The diversities of occupation swell up the 
aggregate of new labourers, and if we were united the in- 
evitable result would be that each of us would secure a 
much larger share as parts of one great State, than either 
or all of us can command as separated and obscure pro- 
vinces. In the past what has been the fact ? We gained 
but one million of British emigrants in all our provinces, 
from 1815 to 1860, while the United States gained three 
millions. Three of our natural born fellow-subjects passed 
us by for one that remained. They helped to swell the 
ranks and increase the riches of the Republic in a threefold 
ratio to ours, and they raised it in half a century to so high 
a pitch of prosperity, that prosperity-mad, it spurned the 
immigrant, and madly menaced those ancient islands from 
which it drew its first being as well as the whole outline of 
its civilisation. 

Fourth. There is what I shall call the patriotic argu- 
ment — the argument to be drawn from the absolute 
necessity of cultivating a high-hearted patriotism amongst 
us provincialists. I speak without offence — with an eye 
to my own part of the country as well as any other — when 
I ask, why are our ordinary politics so personal ; why are 
our great men sometimes found so small ? Because we 
are sectional and provincial in spirit as well as in fact ; we 
are not simply shut up in our several corners, but we sub- 
divide those corners into pettiest domains. With us, in 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 63 

Canada, there is a Toronto party, an Ottawa party, or a 
Quebec party. It was said of old, "Octavius had his 
party, Antony had his party, but the Commonwealth has 
none," — and thence the decline and fall of Rome. Are we 
capable in these lands of being inspired with sentiments of 
a saving patriotism ? Are we capable of being kindled into 
a common passion for a common cause ? Capable, I mean, 
of being made so in advance of events which might prevent 
the sacred fire from warming or guiding us on in a common 
contest. I don't ask you how you would feel down here, 
on the Gulf or the Bay of Eundy, if you heard Quebec was 
besieged — that Quebec had fallen. I have no doubt what- 
ever that you would feel a common calamity then, or that 
we would equally feel it on the St. Lawrence, if we heard 
that Halifax had been attacked by a fleet of Monitors, or 
that a hostile force had crossed the St. John. But it 
might be too late then to remedy the evils of isolation — it 
would certainly be too late to avert some of the worst of 
them. Is it not the part of true wisdom now, while we yet 
have time — now while the actual emergency is not yet upon 
us — is not this the opportunity, since we must stand or fall 
together, if war comes, to consult how best we may conduct 
ourselves by each other, and towards England, so that we 
may stand, and not fall ? so that England may trust, and 
not distrust us ? 

Fifth (and for the present lastly). There is the argu- 
ment of political necessity, arising from the state of our 
next neighbours. I am not about to say one word — I can 
lay my hand on my heart and declare that I do not believe 
I have uttered one word since the commencement of the 
unhappy civil war — to irritate or embitter republican feeling 
against us. I deprecate all intermeddling on our part in 
that war, in which we were commanded to observe a strict 
neutrality, in spirit and in letter, and I would implore every 
man who values the blessing of good neighbourhood not 
wantonly to aggravate the existing bad feeling. In this 
case, certainly, they who " sow in bitterness " can hardly 
expect "to reap in joy." I say this in no idle hope or 
wish to conciliate northern prejudice in its present temper ; 



64 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

I say it as a lover of peace and a hater of causeless war- 
fare ; but if war must come upon us here, in these long 
peaceful regions, I have no doubt, for my part, that all 
our people, of every race and creed and class, will be found 
serried like iron in defence of our own freedom and the 
imperial connection which ensures it to us. I dare not 
pretend to predict the end of the present contest ; but 
however otherwise it may end, there must long continue 
a powerful military element, active and unexhausted. 
If the South be subdued, armies will be needed to hold 
it down; if the combatants separate, each will arm his 
frontiers and replenish his arsenals. It seems to me a 
question mainly, in this light, whether we shall have two 
military independencies or one between us and Mexico? 
If two, then it would be but natural that they should turn 
back to back — as to their aggressive movements — the 
South marching south, the North marching north. You 
remember Pope's lines — 

" Where is the North ? In York 'tis on the Tweed ! 
In Scotland 'tis the Orcades ; and there— 
'Tis Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where ! " 

Where would be the limit of the North then ? I put 
the question through you and through the press of Halifax 
to all British America. Where would be the limit of 
the North, in that contingency ? I leave the answer to 
each for himself, while I, for my part, answer, that if these 
Provinces are united in good time, for mutual support, 
counsel, and protection, I do not fear that they would be 
able to hold their own against all comers. 

So much for the obvious arguments in favour of Colonial 
union ; the argument from Association : the argument from 
Commercial advantages : the Immigration argument ; the 
Patriotic argument proper ; and the argument drawn from 
the proximity of danger, from the circumstances existing in 
the neighbouring States. Here, I quit the general subject, 
and now beg to come directly to the topic most immediate 
— the necessity — the absolute necessity on all these grounds 
— of an intercolonial railroad. 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 65 

I am not here to discuss, nor would you care to hear, a 
detailed discussion of the long-continued negotiations on 
this subject. But I must take this opportunity of declaring, 
as one cognisant of all the facts (I think I may say so,) of 
the last negotiation, that the imputation of bad faith so 
freely made here and in England, against the Canadian 
delegates who went over last year, is a groundless and 
undeserved accusation. I do not desire to be at all dispu- 
tatious ; I think I may say I am impartial in the matter — 
for with some of the gentlemen as responsible as I was for 
that negotiation, on the part of Canada, I no longer act : 
but whether with them or against them, I utterly deny for 
them and for Canada, the imputation of bad faith. I will 
tell you candidly how the question is viewed in Canada. 
Leading public men of all political parties admit that it is 
most desirable, if the liability could be limited, that this great 
work, so long projected, should be undertaken. There is 
no parliamentary party, there is no Cabinet possible, that 
would say, or dare say, — "no railroad — no connexion — on 
any terms/' At the same time, the non-political men of 
influence — many in Eastern, and many more in Western 
Canada, many also of the constituencies, are not favourable 
to the project at all — certainly not to it as a Government 
work ; they were so scorched by the Grand Trunk, they 
say, that they dread the fire of any other railroad. In some 
respects the popular prejudices against the whole thing are 
not unfounded ; but in others, I am bound to say their 
only basis is a melancholy want of information, as to the 
extent, resources, and capabilities of this part of British 
America. The prejudice really, in these last aspects, is 
against New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as countries, 
rather than against the road. People say, " What do we 
want with a railway down there ? No one lives down there. 
We have no trade, we are never likely to have any trade 
with them. The land is a wilderness, and the winter would 
render the road impassable." This is, of course, gross 
assumption; but has not every great improvement to 
encounter just such assumptions ? Was not the Reci- 
procity Treaty carried against prejudices as perverse — as 



66 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

contrary to the facts ? Was not the Union of the Canadas 
themselves a conquest over far worse prejudices ? And it 
is because this want of .knowledge can only be combated 
by intelligence, that I am a volunteer in the needful work 
of making the different provinces acquainted with each 
other. It is not harder to pull a prejudice than to pull a 
tooth — and the unsounder it is, the more necessary to have 
it out. I invoke intelligence on our side. To combat 
against such lamentable misconception everything helps, 
from a weather almanac up to a Scriptural quotation, and 
even if the railroad should not soon go on, the labours of 
intelligence will not be altogether lost. In one sentence, 
ladies and gentlemen, I do not hesitate for my part to say, 
that if it can be shown to the satisfaction of the people of 
Canada that the country through which the road would 
pass, is naturally rich for three-fourths of the way in soil 
and in minerals ; if it can be shown (as is the fact) that, 
thanks to your warm-hearted neighbour, the Gulf Stream, 
your winters are far milder than ours, either in Lower or 
Central Canada ; if it can be shown that the liability could 
be limited to three, or even three and a half millions ster- 
ling; if it can be shown that private capitalists able and 
willing for the work might be found to undertake it ; then, 
ladies and gentlemen, on all these showings, which I myself 
believe to be perfectly possible, I have no hesitation in 
saying that the people of Canada, for their own sakes, and 
for the sake of British connection, would sustain their 
government in entering at once on this great work, and 
thus rendering practicable the so desirable Union of all the 
Colonies. 

Here, perhaps, I best may pause. A very few words, 
and I am done. This great project of Union was, as you 
know, endorsed by Lord Durham, the Imperial High Com- 
missioner to these Provinces, in 1838. Of late years it 
had been sustained through all vicissitudes, on this side of 
the Atlantic, mainly by the advocacy of the many able 
public men Nova Scotia has given to political life. Some — 
the chief among them (turning to Messrs. Johnson, Howe, 
Tapper, Henry, &c), I have the satisfaction of seeing here, 



ADDRESSES ON VAEIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 67 

beside me. They are here, irrespective of party, and I trust 
I may add, that I have endeavoured, not only out of care 
for the subject, but from respect to them, to treat the sub- 
ject wholly without allusion to party, or local distinctions. 
In the presence of the great subject as I contemplate it, 
the lines of party are effaced and disappear. I endeavour 
to contemplate it in the light of a future, possible, proba- 
ble, and I hope to live to be able to say positive, British- 
American Nationality. For I repeat in the terms of the 
question I asked at first, what do we need to construct such 
a Nationality? Territory, resources by sea and land, civil 
and religious freedom — these we already have. Eour mil- 
lions we already are — four millions culled from the races 
that for a thousand years have led the van of Christendom. 
When the sceptre of Christian civilisation trembled in the 
enervate grasp of the Greeks of the Lower Empire, then the 
western tribes of Europe, fiery, hirsute, clamorous, but 
kindly, snatched at the falling prize, and placed themselves 
at the head of human affairs. We are the children of these 
fire-tried kingdom-founders, of these ocean- discoverers of 
western Europe. Analyse our aggregate population : we 
have more Saxons than Alfred had when he founded the 
English realm ; we have more Celts than Brien had when 
he put his heel on the neck of Odin ; we have more Nor- 
mans than William had when he marshalled his invading 
host along the strand of Ealaise. We have the laws of 
St. Edward and St. Louis ; Magna-Charta and the Roman 
Code; we speak the speeches of Shakespeare and Bossuet; 
we copy the constitution which Burke and Somers and 
Sidney and Sir Thomas More lived or died to secure or 
save. Out of these august elements, in the name of the 
future generations who shall inhabit all the vast regions 
we now call ours, I invoke the fortunate genius of an united 
British America, to solemnise law with the moral sanctions 
of religion, and to crown the fair pillar of our freedom with 
its only appropriate capital, lawful authority, so that, hand 
in hand, we and our descendants may advance steadily to 
the accomplishment of a common destiny. 

v 2 



INTERCOLONIAL RELATIONS AND THE 
INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY. 

An Address at Mechanics' Institute, St. John, N.B., August, 1863. 

Mr. McGeb said : — Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentle- 
men, — The postponement of the present address from 
Eriday evening last till to-night, which I hope has not 
caused the Committee or the citizens of St. John any in- 
convenience, arose from my strong desire to see a part of 
Nova Scotia, of which the traveller, hurried by rail from 
"Windsor to Halifax, has no conception, — I allude to the 
beautiful valley between Windsor and Annapolis. Eor 
two entire days we traversed that beautiful valley — looking 
out on those fertile marshes, celebrated in the hexameters 
of Longfellow, breathing the perfume of meadows, of corn- 
fields, and of orchards. In no part of North America 
have I seen a lovelier, or apparently a more prosperous, 
country. I do not wonder that our countrymen of Nova 
Scotia should be proud of what they called the Garden of 
their Province, or that they should — for they are a most 
hospitable people — desire to give strangers such a treat, 
as a journey through that 80 or 90 miles of their "happy 
valley." 

While referring to Nova Scotia, I may be permitted, 
' perhaps, to say, that I think the good cause of Colonial 
Union received a powerful impetus the other night at 
Halifax. When I left here a fortnight ago, I had no 
intention whatever of speaking on that subject during my 
visit to Nova Scotia ; but I sincerely rejoice now that the 
delivery of the address, or lecture, which my friends 
requested for a local charity, was the occasion of an 
expression of public opinion by the first men and first 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 69 

journalists of that Province, which must be considered 
most timely and most important. We had, accidentally, 
present on that evening, my hon. friend the leader of the 
Government of this Province (Mr. Tilley), with the leading 
Nova Scotians, and I am sure the practical evidence 
afforded of the possibility of the union and concord of the 
public men of these Provinces, was an illustration the 
most striking that could be furnished to the arguments 
which had been advanced. Perhaps you will further 
indulge me in taking this first opportunity to return my 
warm personal thanks to the people and press of Nova 
Scotia, for their very great and very undeserved kindness 
to myself, during my stay among them. 

You are aware, ladies and gentlemen, that the immediate 
object of the present lecture was to advance the organiza- 
tion of our friend Captain Millet's Volunteer Company. 
I am sure I shall only be too happy if I can contribute 
anything in this, or in any other way, to foster a resident 
military spirit in these Colonies. Every one must see that 
such a spirit, generously encouraged and wisely directed, 
is essential to our continuance as free communities ; that 
every drill-room and every armory is a high school of 
patriotism; and that the popularity of our Volunteers is 
the fittest expression we can give to the general feeling of 
public spirited attachment to our free Institutions. In 
endeavouring to meet, in this respect, the wishes of the 
Volunteers, we selected, as the subject for consideration, — 
Intercolonial Relations, and the Intercolonial Railway — a 
subject naturally and inseparably associated with the causes 
which have called the Volunteers into existence ; and most 
plainly of all, with the leading questions of Colonial defences 
and British connection. 

I did not touch, at Halifax, on this subject of Colonial 
defences, because I had matter enough and to spare, of a 
political and commercial kind: and because I wished to 
reserve its discussion for the present more appropriate 
occasion, when, speaking for the Volunteers of St. John, I 
could more properly introduce the subject of defence, as 
understood in the Province in which I reside. All parties 



70 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

there — theoretically at least — admit that the Imperial 
connection, as now existing, is well worth fighting for ; 
all parties admit that the extent of our ability is the 
measure of our responsibility ; but no one with us, endorses 
the doctrine of the new school of Colonial reformers in 
England, that our measure of local " self-government " 
necessarily includes self-defence. We hold to the old 
doctrine, that peace and war are the dread prerogatives that 
attach to sovereignty only; that to provide means and 
measures of defence attach as responsibilities to these 
prerogatives; that not being sovereign powers we can 
neither make war nor cause war to cease; and, therefore, 
that our contribution towards the defences of these Pro- 
vinces must needs be secondary, as our powers and respon- 
sibilities are secondary, to those of the Empire at large. 
But while we hold these maxims, all of us, absolutely, we 
cheerfully acknowledge that the sacrifices made by the 
Imperial Government in maintaining the West India fleet 
— as much for our protection as that of the West Indies — 
in maintaining the great fortresses from Halifax to Kings- 
ton — in dispatching her Guards, as she did in December, 
1861, to guard our frontier — we cheerfully and gratefully 
admit, that these sacrifices on the part of the Sovereign 
State, demand sacrifices in turn from us, and that, cost 
what it may, we must, in Canada, for some time to come, 
maintain a large and effective Militia. The late Govern- 
ment, of which I was a member, armed and equipped in a 
few months 25,000 men, and enrolled about 10,000 other 
volunteers, for whose equipment Parliament had made no 
provision. It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that 
Canada can and will raise, as a precautionary force, 50,000 
active service men; and in case of necessity, I have no 
doubt we could double the number in a reasonable time. 

Perhaps you will allow me to remark here, on the recent 
views promulgated in England, by Mr. Goldwin Smith, 
Mr. Adderley, M.P., and others, as to the military relations 
sustained by the thirteen colonies who became the United 
States, relations contrasted by those gentlemen with the 
similar relations sustained by us, much to our disparage- 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 71 

ment. These views have been very ably criticised in a 
pamphlet by my friend the Honorable Mr. Howe, pub- 
lished at London during the present year ; but Mr. Howe 
dealt with the immediate rather than the historical aspects 
of the question as stated by Mr. Adderley and Mr. Smith. 
Those gentlemen contrast invidiously as against us, what 
they call the " self-reliance " of the revolted colonies, in 
this matter of defence. Now what are the real facts in 
relation to this military connection of those ex-Colonies 
with Great Britain during the last century? I utterly 
deny that there is extant a document, despatch, or prece- 
dent, to show that those English settlements ever considered 
themselves principals in their own defence against France, 
Spain, or Holland. Against the Narragansetts or the 
Iroquois they acted for themselves, but when the quarrel 
was Imperial — when the enemy was a great civilised power, 
— whatever contingent force they contributed to the cam- 
paign, — they claimed their bounty and got it out of the 
Crown Lands; they claimed their pay and got it out of 
the Imperial Treasury. The very terms they employed, 
" Queen Anne's war," " King George's war," showed the 
state of their public opinion ; in " the French and Indian 
war" — known in Europe as the "Seven years' war" — the 
genius of Chatham contrived to make them more prominent 
in their own quarrel; but even on that eve of supreme 
triumph for the English in North America, they never held 
any other language than that which we hold in Canada, 
when we contend that the power to make peace or war 
alone comprehends the duty of providing adequate ways 
and means of defence. The memorial of the royal governors 
of New York and New England, Shirley and Clinton, to 
the Lords of Trade, in 1748; the correspondence of 
Governors Hutchinson and Dobbs; the plan of Union 
submitted at the Albany Conference of 1754, by Dr. 
Franklin; every document of that period, does, in my 
opinion, place the question just where it now is, that the 
main defence rests on the Imperial, and the secondary only 
on the Colonial authorities. Governors Shirley and Clinton 
were so convinced from " past experience" that New York 



72 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

and New England "would never agree on quotas" (towards 
Colonial defence), that they saw no hope of getting anything 
done except by the direct intervention of the Crown, " by 
royal instructions." I refer to this entire despatch, and to 
many other papers on the same subject, published in the 
voluminous Colonial Records of New York, to show that 
we have not degenerated from the example of the elder 
Colonies in their best days ; to show that the charge is at 
k-ast not made out as completely as Mr. Adderley would 
Lave his English readers believe. 

I advocate the union of the Provinces on, among other 
grounds, that of better providing for the common defence. 
I am committing no indiscretion — because their report has 
been published by order of the Imperial Parliament and of 
the Canadian Assembly — when I allude to the fact that the 
late Royal Defence Commission, in Canada, laid great stress 
on the completion of what they call " the Quebec and 
Halifax Railway" as a military work. But we have even 
a better evidence of its importance — the evidence of fact. 
You all remember when, at the time of the Trent affair, 
the Persia and other transports were dispatched with 
troops for Canada in the month of December. They were 
to get a certain sum if they landed them here or at Halifax, 
and nearly double the sum if they landed them in the St. 
Lawrence. Well, the Persia made her way up to Riviere 
du Loup, but she was obliged to run from that port, 
leaving some of her boats and men behind her, before half 
the soldiers were landed; the remainder I believe she 
brought round here. This occurrence, which happened 
early in the winter, indicated precisely the military position 
of Canada for four or five months in the year, and with 
Canada, New Brunswick, at least, must stand or fall. Nova 
Scotia, guarded by fleets and fortresses, might be made a 
sort of cis- Atlantic Gibraltar or Malta, but your destiny 
and ours, gentlemen, is as inseparable as are the waters 
which pour into the Bay Chaleurs, rising, though they do, 
on the one hand on the Canadian, and on the other on the 
New Brunswick Highlands. Geographically, we are bound 
up beyond the power of extrication ; your Northern coun- 



ADDEESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 73 

ties, a great and flourishing portion of this Province, front 
on our waters ; the Miramichi and the Restigouehe drain- 
ing their thousands of square miles of territory, must for 
ever associate New Brunswick and Canada as co-partners 
in the advantages and the casualties of the commerce of 
the Gulf, When, therefore, I advocate our future union 
I only follow Nature ; the text is given us by Nature ; it 
is for man to make the commentary. 

All states and forms of ancient and modern civilisation 
have been the result of human intelligence, supplementing 
and supplying the requirements of nature. Voices cried 
aloud from the void, and man hastened to respond. Thus, 
in the Plain of Egypt what was needed of old was eleva- 
tion, and man multiplied the column, the obelisk, and the 
Pyramid ; thus what was needed in modern Europe was 
expansion, and man invented the mariner's compass, the 
ocean ship, and the art of navigation. So uncouth rivers 
have become celebrated in song, and obscure scenes, glori- 
fied by the footsteps of romance, attract wauderers in search 
of health or pleasure, from the ends of the earth. With 
the same cry, do the gigantic, dislocated fragments of 
British America, appeal to our hearts, our senses, and our 
reason ; there they lie outstretched, longing for unity — if 
we are a generation worthy to organize a nation, assuredly 
the materials are abundant and are at hand ! 

I shall not go over again the arguments I adduced at 
Halifax, drawn from our mutually destructive tariffs, and 
from the immense results achieved by the principle of asso- 
ciation, in our times ; but I may perhaps, without impro- 
priety, refer again to the argument to be drawn from the 
laws which govern immigration and settlement to these 
Provinces, as compared with the neighbouring states. 
Many persons express surprise to me, that notwithstanding 
the civil war, the immigration into the United States 
should be so immense, and into Canada so comparatively 
little. It seems to me, that the very existence of the war 
itself, as long as it is unaccompanied by insolvency, may 
account for this. Suppose 50,000 mechanics and 200,000 
agriculturists have been cut off in this war while the con- 



74 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION.] 

sumption of the country is not seriously impeded, it is clear 
there must be an enhanced demand, just now, for a quarter 
of a million of men to supply their places. It is thus the 
wide field makes the full ship, and the port from which the 
redistribution of diverse industries takes place over the 
greatest extent of country, draws to itself the strong and 
perpetual stream of fructifying foreign labour. You have 
in the interior of New Brunswick — I speak on the autho- 
rity of the Agricultural Professor Johnston — one of the 
finest unsettled tracts in North America, a tract through 
which I hope yet to travel by railroad — within sight of the 
houses of tens of thousands of the proprietors of the soil. 
But while the maritime Provinces are disunited from 
Canada, and Canada from them, we are comparatively 
unseen and unfelt in Europe — we present on the map our 
puny outlines in vain; give to the Provinces the aspect of 
Empire, and you will see how strangers will turn to them 
with such reverence as the Parsee does to the rising Sun. 

I am well aware, Mr. Chairman, that we cannot have 
Union, that we cannot even have a commercial league, 
without other means of intercourse than we now possess. 
There was some fanciful talk formerly among us in Canada, 
that the people of Maine might wish by-and-by to cast 
in their lot with us, and thus make Maine the bond of 
connection, east and west. This commanding position 
seems, however, clearly reserved for New Brunswick, winch 
alone can unite Nova Scotia and Canada. Now what, you 
will ask, in your opinion, is the greatest obstacle to the 
establishment of such direct intercourse ? I answer un- 
hesitatingly, ignorance of each other's true resources and 
condition. It is not the distance; it is not the cost ; it is 
not the disputes about routes or modes of construction ; it 
is Intercolonial ignorance which, primarily, stands in the 
way of the Intercolonial Eailway. Eor example, very 
intelligent people with us, especially in Western Canada, 
will insist that the winter down here is so severe that the 
road, if made, would be blocked up all the winter with ice 
and snow. In vain we show that your 100 miles of rail- 
road, and Nova Scotia's 60, have not been stopped by such 






ADDRESSES Otf VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 75 

causes five days in five years; it is hard to displace precon- 
ceived ideas. They argue in this absurd way; — Lower 
Canada is colder than Upper Canada, therefore, the Lower 
Provinces are colder than Lower Canada. Now, what are 
the exact facts on this much misunderstood subject of 
climate ? (I select the figures from the tables prepared 
for the Smithsonian Institute in i860, which included all 
North America.) The mean annual temperature of this 
and the Nova Scotia coast, taken at the highest and lowest 
points — Windsor and Pictou — ranges from 51*43 at the 
former, to 42*09 at the latter — the lowest point being £ 
degrees higher than Quebec, and the highest being 2 
degrees higher than Hamilton, Canada West; and the 
average being nearly 3 degrees higher than the mean 
annual temperature of Montreal or Toronto. It is all in 
vain to show them this, and to point to Professor John- 
ston's report. In spite of agriculturists, geologists, and 
statistics, like dear old Christopher North in Blackwood's 
Magazine, who, having once called Montgomery a Mora- 
vian, declared, notwithstanding the poet's own denial, that 
Blackwood having called him a Moravian, a Moravian 
he must be to the end of the chapter, — those Canadians 
having made up their minds that New Brunswick is a 
wilderness, declared that a wilderness it must be. It is 
useless to tell them of the Gulf Stream. They will not 
believe in the Gulf Stream. I sincerely hope that we will 
soon be able to knock this prop from under the tottering 
form of ancient prejudice, and that we will hear no more 
of the insuperable obstacle of your winter climate. Others 
are frightened because the Grand Trunk was such a drain 
on our Province, and argue that the Intercolonial would be 
just such another. 

I admit, however, that there are specious and even 
reasonable objections to the undertaking being directed or 
controlled by the political parties in power, for the time 
being, in these Provinces. I admit that there are some 
good grounds for alleging that Lord Palmerston's Govern- 
ment seem disposed to drive a rather hard bargain with the 
Colonies. I admit that the expenditure ought to be estimated, 



76 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

with proximate certainty, before the Legislature of the several 
Provinces should be called upon to give effect to the project. 

On all these grounds there is fair room for discussion 
and argument; but how any man who looks beyond the 
hour, can deny the vital necessity for a road, on some con- 
ditions, is really what I cannot conceive. No party — no 
Government in Canada — could take that extreme ground, 
and live ; no man pretending to the character of a states- 
man would venture on such ground. A resolution opposing 
the project absolutely was once proposed in the Canadian 
Parliament, and only seven persons, besides the mover, 
voted for it in a house of over a hundred. And such, I 
am certain, would be the fate of any similar vote moved 
now after a general election. In fact, a feeling of un- 
easiness pervades the thinking portion of the Canadian 
people. They feel that a more intimate connection with 
England is necessary, and that if this is to be effected we 
must ourselves draw nearer to the mother country. I deny 
that there was any want of faith on the part of the Canadian 
Government in the late negotiations in London on this 
subject. We may have thought the Imperial Government 
were driving a hard bargain with us, and that they ought 
to regard this road as a work of military defence ; but no 
one who knows the gentlemen who went as Delegates from 
Canada could believe them capable of acting in bad faith. 
With one of those gentlemen I am not acting politically, 
but whether acting with him or against him, I feel it my 
duty to bear witness to his integrity and his high sense of 
honour. Notwithstanding all the difficulties that lie in the 
way, however, I do not despair of seeing this great work go 
on, with your and Nova Scotia's co-operation. 

Although I have usually put forward defensive and com- 
mercial reasons for the road, I confess to you frankly, that 
I place as high, or even higher than either, reasons more 
purely political. I am, from conviction and observation, 
in favour of giving the constitutional monarchy a fair trial 
in British America. In the language of the Hon. Premier 
of Nova Scotia the other night, I am desirous to see that 
form of free government working side by side with the 






ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS, 77 

Eepublican form of free government on this continent. 
For, I maintain that the limited monarchy, with representa- 
tive institutions, is as essentially a free government as any 
republic that ever existed. The name republic is not 
always synonymous with freedom, as we may see in Yenice 
and ancient Rome; indeed some kingdoms have been 
administered throughout upon republican principles, and 
some republics upon despotic principles. I acknowledge the 
salutary efficacy of what Burke called " the suppressed re- 
publicanism " of the British system, and that there are 
periods and circumstances in which it ought not to be sup 
pressed; hence seeking anxiously for my adopted country sta- 
bility as well as the largest liberty, I confess I turn, after many 
anxious years of consideration, to the expedient of an invio- 
lable head, with responsible advisers, as the only one yet known 
among men which can give us, in harmonious proportions, a 
government preservative of freedom, and conservative of law. 

[Here the reporter resorts to the "third person."] 

The lecturer dwelt at great length on this subject. He had 
arrived at his present convictions slowly and somewhat 
painfully, often forced by experience and reflection to 
abandon theories which he had believed to be sound, and 
principles which he had supposed to be just. Liberty and 
authority were parts of the same thing, and without 
authority true liberty could not exist. If a monarchy were 
not possible, and to join the American Democracy were not 
desirable, what course should they mark out for themselves? 
Canada could not go on long in the course she is following. 
She has made the Upper Chamber elective — and as a body 
representing the people it can claim the right to control 
money grants. The West having outgrown Lower Canada, 
demands representation according to population. He be- 
lieved the principle to be just, and that the demand must one 
day be complied with. In all these Provinces the authority 
of the head of the Government has been diminished until it 
is now almost nugatory. In England this is not so, for the 
Crown being the fountain of honour, the influence of the 
monarch is, and always must be, great. The experience of 



78 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

all ages lias shown that in times of peril authority is essen- 
tial to the welfare or even to the existence of the State, and 
that if the head of the Government had his authority unduly 
impaired in times of peace, he must when danger threatens, 
burst all these shackles, and, it may be, in the spirit of the 
highest patriotism assume a degree of power necessary for 
the protection of the rights and liberties of the people as 
"well as of his own inheritance. The powers now assumed 
by the President of the neighbouring republic in suspending 
the Habeas Corpus, and ordering the arrest of persons and 
the suppression of newspapers, often by telegraph, showed 
that this was true. In this, history is but repeating itself. 
The Eoman Kepublic two thousand years ago, when danger 
threatened, sensible that its electoral system was not 
adapted to emergencies, substituted the Consul by a 
Dictator. 

It had been his fortune, he said, to live twice under a 
Kepublic, and twice under a Monarchy, and therefore, 
besides what he read on the subject, he had an introspective 
view of the working of the two systems. Prom his own 
observation, he was satisfied that the United States was not 
the place where a person with European notions and ideas 
could desire to bring up his family. Their respect for 
religion, for authority, for law, for old age — all that consti- 
tutes the strongest and most enduring bonds of society — 
all that thinking men value most, is fast disappearing. 
"Where the most awful and most holy names are used so 
constantly and so profanely, in the most odious asseverations 
and the most fearful blasphemy, it was but natural to ex- 
pect that some great calamity must come for the purgation 
of people prosperity-mad. But the calamity he anticipated 
was social, not political. He never did anticipate that the 
institutions of. the country would prove a total failure. Jn 
one way or other the monarchies of Europe had carried on 
the great work of government for a thousand years. The 
unity of the States, framed by great and wise men, has not 
outlived three generations. He would not say that the 
Americans had not made some important discoveries in 
politics, as well as in machinery, and excellent adaptations 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 79 

of old principles to modern circumstances ; but the system, 
for want of authority, nevertheless must be recast. He 
asked the audience to reflect how essential to good govern- 
ment the existence of authority is. The Atlantic has washed 
out of the people of these Provinces many old world pre- 
judices, as well those that are good and salutary as those 
that are the reverse; yet without the principle of authority, 
what is there to give stability to the government or to 
secure the liberties of the people ? What avails it that the 
rich dews and rains of heaven fall on the sandy desert, if 
there be no cisterns to catch and preserve the water for the 
sustentation of animal and human life ? Whatever be the 
result of the present struggle on the Potomac and the 
Mississippi, this much was evident, that we are no longer 
to have a pacific .Republic as our neighbours. Beyond our 
border will henceforth be a great military power, and we 
must hasten to decide whether we are to be regarded as 
crude republics, which, after a few more ripening summers 
have passed over us, shall fall into the open maw of the 
great republic, or as destined to form a great northern con- 
stitutional monarchy. The condition of these Provinces 
cannot continue very long to be what it now is. The con- 
nection with the Empire is little more than the allegiance 
which we pay to the Sovereign so earnestly and warmly in 
words, and yet entails on us responsibilities which may 
prove too weighty if we are not united under a constitu- 
tional monarchy, framed after the pattern of that Govern- 
ment with which we have been so long connected. We 
cannot have much that has gone to form the present 
English nation. We cannot have a Norman conquest or 
Eeudal laws; but we may have authority, stability, a 
revenue for all the things necessary to safety, and the most 
ample measure of freedom. It has been said of old that 
empire comes from the North. Shall not we, free from the 
despotism of Asia, the slavery of America, the pauperism of 
Europe, create out of these disconnected Provinces which 
are now unknown to Europe, unknown to America, un- 
known one to the other, which instead of looking to one 
another, and aiding one another, stand back to back and 



80 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

look to London, to Paris, or to Washington, a great con- 
stitutional monarchy, with strength and authority in the 
government, justice and truth in its councils, and liberty 
everywhere — a country to be admired and respected by all 
nations ? Henceforth a balance of power — a principle in- 
troduced in Europe as a substitute for the temporal supre- 
macy of the Popes — would be necessary to prevent the 
aggrandizement of the strong and the oppression of the 
weak. Even Mexico, with its people whose blood was one- 
eighth Spanish and seven-eighths that of the savage native 
tribes, was endeavouring to prepare for this future; and 
would not these Provinces become, as they easily might, a 
power able to maintain its own independence ? The time, 
he said, was suited for such a change. In the time of the 
Kegency, when the greatest talents were properly employed 
in exposing to ridicule and contempt the degrading vices of 
the Sovereign, it would have been difficult ; but the virtues, 
public and private, of the Queen have shed a new lustre on 
the authority she wields, as the virtues, public and private, 
and even the domestic afflictions, of Maria Theresa won back 
the affection and loyalty of the Hungarians for the House 
of Hapsburg. 

The lecturer [says the reporter] concluded as follows : — 
This being my general view of my own duty — my sincere, 
slow-formed conviction of what a British-American policy 
should be — I look forward to the time when these Provinces, 
once united, and increasing at an accelerated ratio, may 
become a Principality, worthy of the acceptance of one of 
the sons of that Sovereign whose reign inaugurated the 
firm foundation of our Colonial liberties. If I am right, the 
railroad will give us Union, Union will give us nationality, 
and nationality a Prince of the blood of our ancient kings. 
These speculations on the future may be thought prema- 
ture and fanciful — but what is premature in America? 
Propose a project which has life in it, and while still you 
speculate it grows. If that way towards greatness, which I 
have ventured to point out to our scattered communities, 
be practicable, I have no fear that it will not be taken even 
in my time. If it be not practicable — well then, at least, 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 81 

I shall have this consolation, that I have invited the intelli- 
gence of these Provinces to rise above partisan contests and 
personal warfare, to the consideration ©f great principles, 
healthful and ennobling in their diseussion, to the minds of 
men. 

Let me, before I close, offer with great respect a single 
suggestion to the British American Press. I have been 
here, in the lower Provinces, nearly three weeks, and, 
except a very occasional paragraph, I have not seen a single 
quotation from the press of Canada; the same thing, I 
know, holds true with us. Now is it not possible to remedy 
this fatal absence of intercommunication through the Press? 
Is it not possible, both here and in Canada, that we should 
give a little more attention to each other's affairs, so that 
when the time comes when we must act together — as come 
it will — we may learn to meet like old friends, rather than 
as aliens and strangers ? 

Mr. Chairman — I beg to repeat once more here in St. 
John, what I have said this night week in Halifax, that 
there is no party in Canada opposed to the great enterprise 
which is to give us union, strength, and security. In that 
firm conviction I return to my home, prepared to take my 
humble part — and all the better prepared, I hope, from 
this visit along-shore — in furtherance of that great measure. 
I need not appeal to your public men and public writers to 
judge justly and generously of their contemporaries in the 
sister Provinces ; I am sure that they will do so — for all know, 
who are publicists, how much we stand in need of fair play 
and a fair construction of our motives. I do not attempt 
to prejudge the present Canadian Administration, but I will 
be much surprised if, whether they stand or fall, many 
among them do not prove to be staunch friends of union 
and authority. At all events, there are before the public 
men of British America at this moment but two courses — 
either to drift with the tide of democracy, or to seize the 
golden moment and fix for ever the monarchical character of 
our institutions. We have now two choices — representa- 
tive government or democracy ; which shall we choose ? 
Eor my part, I choose the former, and I invite every fellow 



82 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

colonist who agrees with me to unite our efforts, that we 
may give our Provinces the aspect of Empire, in order to 
exercise influence abroad and at home, to create a state and 
to originate a History, " which the world will not willingly 
let die/' 



THE FUTURE OF CANADA. 

Substance op a Lecture delivered at St. Lawrence Hall, Toronto, 
November 26th, 1863. 

Mr. McGee said : — I am to speak to you to-night, ladies 
and gentlemen, of "The Future of Canada." It is a subject 
on which I have already spoken frequently in other towns 
and cities, and I trust it may not be without its interest — 
judging by the array before me it is not without its interest 
— for Toronto. Before, however, entering on the discussion 
of the subject, let me take you all, without preface, into my* 
confidence. I may say, then, that I find it exceedingly 
difficult to discuss any subject, within a thousand miles of 
the topics of the day, without exciting the most extraordi- 
nary speculations. Our provincial public have many excel- 
lent qualities, but they are rather too narrow in the matter 
of motives of conduct. Is it not possible, for example, to 
use the words "Canada," "America," "Government," or 
" Constitution/' without subjecting oneself to the suspicion 
of wrapping up a partisaA speech in the disguise of a pop- 
ular lecture ? I remember well, when, some years ago, I 
delivered a purely didactic lecture in this very place, on 
" The Political Morality of Shakspeare's Plays," some of 
the critics of the day saw only in my dissertation a clever 
partisan manoeuvre ; but I trust the day has already come, 
when it will be admitted that it is possible, even for a poli- 
tician, to choose a great subject of general interest, and to 
discuss it on its merits, without compromising himself by 
attempting to steal a march on any portion of his audience. 
It has been objected to my treatment of this subject, that 
it is theoretical ; that it puts me in the position, for which I 
own myself wholly unsuited, of a teacher of loyalty ; that I 

q 2 



84 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

mingle in the discussion injurious criticisms on our Repub- 
lican neighbours. To these objections, I answer, that 
though theoretical to-day, our future will be practical to- 
morrow ; that I do not, and never did, place myself in the 
position of a preacher of loyalty ; that I preach rather secu- 
rity, I preach precaution, I preach self-preservation ; that if 
I criticise the American system of government, I equally 
criticise our own, and I trust no one will deny me that right 
of free discussion, which within proper bounds is one of the 
first — if not the very first — of the rights which constitute 
the common stock of our freedom. In glancing over the 
political map of Europe and America, the patent fact strikes 
every one, that in the old world the governments, with 
hardly an exception, are monarchical, while in the new 
world they are republican; Switzerland on the old conti- 
nent, and Brazil on the new, are alone exceptions to the 
rule.* From this prevalence of one invariable type on each 
side the Atlantic, one might be led to conclude that there 
was some natural fitness, in each case, of the constitution to 
the circumstances. I do not pretend to deny that it is 
natural for a larger liberty to flourish in these new regions ; 
that the new-found forest gave way for freedom but not for 
privilege ; but if we look closer, I think we will discern 
that there are as many varieties among the States calling 
themselves republican as there are among monarchies ; that 
some monarchies, in all but name, might be considered 
republics, while some republics partake largely, if not of a 
monarchical, certainly of an oligarchical character. We 
must not allow ourselves to be misled by names alone in 
this discussion, but if possible we must endeavour to force 
our way through that cactus-fence into the presence of the 
things themselves. The circumstances of the new world, 
North and South, were certainly favourable to the erection 
of republics. The monarchy did not emigrate ; the metro- 
polis, with all its attractions, remained in the parent State ; 
the aggrandisement of labour was the foundation of new 
communities ; the old Colonial relation was strained till it 

* Mexico Las since been added to the American exceptions. 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 85 

snapped, and then, by its own bold act, rather than the 
provision of the parent State, the Colony sprang into inde- 
pendence. Such is the invariable history of the Anglo- 
American and Spanish- American States, which have pre- 
ceded us in the pathway of nationality. I allude to them 
because I know only two teachers capable of instructing us 
in the way in which we, too, should go, — cotemporary 
events, and the voice of History. If we go to the oracles 
of the past, in a sincere spirit of inquiry, we shall never fail 
of instruction. But we shall find there precisely what we 
seek for : if we consult History in a spirit of Hatred we 
shall find there poisonous and deadly weapons enough ; but 
if, in a sincere desire to know and to hold fast by the truth, 
we seek that source of political wisdom, we can never come 
away empty or disappointed. And then — as to events ; if 
a man be cotemporary to a great event and will not see it ; 
if the event speaks with the voice of a cannonade, and men 
will not hear it, the fault and the loss are with that age ; a 
deaf and dumb stolidity which sometimes entails its conse- 
quences on after ages. In America, the cardinal events 
would seem to be, its discovery; the importation of the 
African as a slave ; the revolt of the Thirteen Colonies in 
1776; the final abandonment by Spain of South America 
in 1823; and the Civil War of 1861. If I am not mis- 
taken we are cotemporaries of an event, — this war of Seces- 
sion, — as instructive for us, as the success of Columbus or 
of Washington was, for the men of their generations. 
Looking back to History, and out of the world we live in, 
I feel as if we, in Canada, with our anxious three millions, 
and our peculiar situation, were about to embark like the 
voyagers of old, who first left behind them the pillars of 
Hercules to sail into the external sea. British precedent 
and American example are the landmarks of the god for us ; 
beyond them we must go, but it is still in our power to say, 
on which shore we shall sacrifice, and under which auspices 
we shall elect to prosecute our destined course. Eor my 
own part, ladies and gentlemen, I have considered the 
problem of American example at its source, and it is one I do 
not feel free in commending to my countrymen of Canada. 



86 BEITISH-AMEEIOAN UNION. 

Eor me, it has the fatal defect of instability and incon- 
stancy. It may be that, out of their present tribulation, 
the national character will consolidate and establish itself ; 
but up to the present, whether in manners or in ideas, there 
has not been that fixity of character in the republic which 
— even supposing everything there to be for the best — 
would justify any observer in proposing it as a model to 
other communities. The colony-bred men who founded 
the republic, were men with English ideas of law and go- 
vernment. George Washington was quite as ceremonious 
in his official conduct as George III. He drove to open 
the first Congress with " buff and blue " liveries — postilions 
and footmen ; and in his bearing towards ambassadors and 
private citizens, he preserved all the gravity and dignity of 
a sovereign. As to the judicial office, from the highest to 
the lowest — from the decisions of the supreme court to the 
pettiest jurisdictions — the Americans of to-day have de- 
parted much farther from the ideas of their grandfathers 
than we in Canada have, from the English of the age of 
Alfred. In the legislative department of government, new 
opinions, no less opposed to the old colonial wisdom, have 
prevailed. Makers and managers of elections, under the 
name of conventions, act for the people on the one hand 
and the candidate on the other ; and after the election, the 
convention leaders naturally constitute themselves "the 
lobby," or third house (as it is called), at Washington and 
all the state capitals. Having made the legislators and the 
governors in conclave, it is natural they should look after 
them in office; it is natural, but it is deplorable, that this 
vast organised, extra-constitutional body called " the lobby," 
should dictate its will to those whom it has called into ex- 
istence. In manners, which are the types of stability or of 
inconstancy, not less than in ideas, the internal revolution 
has proceeded, is proceeding, and probably must proceed 
much further, from the standard of the age of Washington. 
If the Puritan fathers were to revisit Boston to-day, and 
hear bits of Mozart music, pouring out of Gothic churches 
blazoned with stained glass, they could hardly imagine that 
the congregations boasted themselves the children of the 



ADDKESSES ON VAKIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 87 

Puritans. These signs of change may seem trivial in 
themselves, but if, as an ancient sage maintained, a change 
in a nation's music includes a change in its morals, I surely 
am not attaching too much importance to them, as illustra- 
tions of the absence of stability and fixedness in the Ameri- 
can character. If, then, I am correct, in assigning to it 
this description, I say to those who, secretly or openly, are 
preaching up Americanism among us, show us that the 
model you propose to us to imitate is a definite model ; 
show us that what you ask us to copy is stable and certain ; 
otherwise you propose that we shall grasp at the rainbow 
on the spray of the cataract, even at the risk of tumbling 
into Niagara ! As to the other original of a free State, the 
British Constitution, it, at least, will be allowed, even by its 
enemies, the merit of stability. As it exists to-day, it has 
existed for many hundreds of years. It may be said that it 
is rather strango for an Irishman, who spent his youth in 
resisting that government in his native country, to be found 
amongst the admirers of British constitutional government 
in Canada. To that remark, this is my reply : — if in my 
day Ireland had been governed as Canada is now governed, 
I would have been as sound a constitutionalist as is to be 
found in Ireland. 

But although I was not born and bred in the school to 
see the merits of the British constitutional system, I trust 
I am not going to quarrel with the sun and the elements, 
because of late days it has rained 200 days out of the 365 
in the year, on the particular spot of earth on which I was 
born. I take the British constitutional system as the great 
original upon which must be founded the institutions of all 
new free States. I take it as one of a family born of Chris- 
tian civilisation, and of the marriage of that Germanic 
empire, or rather race, which, breaking into nationalities, 
transmitted it to other empires to mould for them free 
institutions. I take it, as combining in itself permanency 
and liberty — liberty in its best form, not in theory alone, 
but in practice — liberty at this hour, enjoyed and prac- 
tised by all the people of Canada of every origin and creed. 
Can any one pretend to say that a chapter of accidents, 



88 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

which we can trace for eight hundred, and which some 
antiquarians may even trace for a much longer period, will 
account for the permanence of any one set of institu- 
tions ? If you say that they have not in themselves the 
elements of permanency — if they have not the saving salt 
which preserves the formation of the Government of a free 
state from one generation to another — how do you account 
for their continued and prosperous existence — how do you 
account for it that of all the ancient institutions of Europe 
this alone remains ; and remains not only with all its 
ancient outlines, but with great modern improvements, and 
even alterations, but alterations some of which might more 
properly be called restorations, and all of which have been 
made in harmony with the design of the first architects ? 
Here is a form of government that has lasted with modi- 
fications to suit the spirit of the age for a period of 800 
years ; and here is another that has lasted 80 years, if it may 
not now be said to be re -revolutionised by the exigencies 
of the civil war. One has had a career of eight centuries, 
and the other of two-and-a-half generations. How is it 
that I account for the permanency of the institutions of the 
first ? Because, in the first place, their outline plan, what- 
ever abuse or injustice may have been the occasional result 
of the system, combined all that has ever been discovered 
in the science of government of material importance. The 
wisdom of the middle age and the modern, of the earliest 
political writers and those of a late day, have all laid down 
one maxim of government — that no unmixed form of govern- 
ment can satisfy the wants of a free and intelligent people ; 
that unmixed democracy, for instance, must result in anar- 
chy or military despotism ; but that that form of govern- 
ment which combines in itself an inviolable monarchy and 
popular representation, with the incitements and induce- 
ments of an aristocracy— a working aristocracy, an aristo- 
cracy that takes its share of shot in the day of battle, of 
toil and labour, of care and anxiety in the time of peace : 
an aristocracy of talent open to the people, who by talent 
and desert make themselves worthy to enter it — is the 
highest result of political science, the highest effort of the 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 89 

mind of man. Let us see if the British form, apart from 
any details* of its practice, combines in itself these three 
qualities. If we hold that authority and liberty are necessary 
to free government — that one is as necessary as the other — 
then we can apply the touchstone to this system, and see 
whether it be true to the mechanism on which it stands. 
The leading principle of the British system is that the head 
of the state is inviolable. It is necessary to the stability of 
any state that there should be an inviolable authority or 
tribunal somewhere, and under the British system that prin- 
ciple is recognised in the maxim that " the king can do no 
wrong/' It is necessary in any free government that there 
should be some power— either the head of the state or some 
other power — beyond which an appeal does not lie, an influ- 
ence not subject to the caprice or whim, or even to the just 
complaint of the private citizen, contending against the 
state. This is necessary to prevent reform becoming revo- 
lution, and to prevent local abuses becoming the source of 
general disorganisation. Having placed the principle of 
inviolability there, and the principle of privilege in the 
peerage, the founders of the British state took care at the 
same time that the peerage should not stagnate into a 
stagnant well, an intolerable pool of pretension and arrogance. 
They left the device of the House of Lords, so to speak, with 
one gable — they left it open to any of the people who might 
distinguish themselves in war or in peace, although they 
might be the children of paupers, (and some have been 
ennobled who were unable to tell who were their parents,) to 
enter and take their places on an equality with the proudest 
there, who dated their descent by centuries. This inclined 
plane by which the people might rise to higher position 
was left open ; and this provision was made in order that 
the peerage should not stagnate into an exclusive caste 
which could never be added to, or subtracted from, except 
by the inevitable law of natural increase or decrease. Then 
as to the English people, there have been great abuses as 
to their representation in the Government; but since the 
Keform Bill there has been pretty general satisfaction on 
this point, and a feeling that all classes have their fair 



90 ' BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

influence. This reform may be enlarged from time to time, 
in accordance with the spirit of the period ; bnt a good 
proof that at present it meets general approbation and gives 
satisfaction, is that the party has not yet become by any means 
powerful that demands a more radical change.* Mr. Mc- 
Gee, having entered at some further length into a conside- 
ration of the elements that form the British system, went 
on to say that in forming the institutions of our country, 
we should compare this system with that which prevailed in 
the North American States, to ask ourselves which was the 
best. He observed that there was a strong democratic 
element in our society in Canada, but he felt satisfied from 
his own intercourse with the people that not three -tenths— - 
he might say one-tenth, but he wished to give the widest 
possible limit — of them were what, by any stretch of the 
term, could be called democrats. He did not believe that 
this proportion existed, even if all who were really demo- 
crats at heart, but for various motives denied the designa- 
tion, were to express their private convictions; and this 
included the whole, whether of French or other than French 
origin. Formerly the democratic spirit had been much 
more strongly exhibited in this country. We had made 
our Legislative Council elective, which in his opinion was 
much to be regretted. We had adopted to a certain extent 
the caucus and convention system of the United States, 
which even many Americans regarded as productive of so 
much evil, and which he thought had no advantage which 
should commend it to our approbation. We had also en- 
couraged and sustained a democratic tone in our public 
press, and in some very conspicuous examples the press had 
a direct tendency to a low — almost the very lowest — tone 
of democratic opinion. He spoke of the public press as 
one who knew it well, and was proud of the rights it en- 
joyed. Fifteen of the best years of his life had been spent 
in almost every relation in which he could stand towards 
public journals. It was because it was desirable that the 

* Here the reporter, for the sake of condensation, makes use of the 
third person, and so continues to the end. 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 91 

public press should occupy that position to which it was 
fairly entitled, that he deplored the exhibition occasionally 
of a species of levelling, and a spirit of disregard for private 
rights and private decorum. Now the press, it appeared to 
him, ought to be a profession, as well as law or medicine. 
If medicine was important, if the maker of pills occupied 
an important place in the community, how much more 
important was the maker of opinions? The physician might 
destroy his individual patient ; the advocate pleading at the 
bar might utter a fallacy, which the jury could detect or the 
judge correct, or which the opposite counsel might expose 
—at worst he would utter his words to impalpable air 
which closed over and erased them, and there was nothing 
irrevocable in such words. But the man without a con- 
science behind a printing-press had a power of multiplying 
his errors to an alarming extent. If such a man might 
give out at midnight his lie in relation to public or private 
interests, he might go home, lay his head upon his 
pillow, and perhaps bid his God good-night ; and before 
the morning dawned the powerful engine, toiling while 
he slept, would have multiplied his lie ten thousand- 
fold, and sent flying over the country, east, west, north, 
and south, littering the land with libels and filling it 
with a fulness of falsehood which neither truth nor 
justice could ever overtake. Of all the professions and 
callings of our time, there was no man, not even the or- 
dained minister of God, who exercised such a fearful in- 
fluence, whether for good or evil, in the perversion or for- 
mation of opinions, as the director of a powerful public 
press. And he was sorry to see, as he did not occasionally 
but frequently see in Canada, an imitation of the worst 
demagogic arts of the neighbouring States ; for there might 
be a demagogic press, as well as a demagogic politician. 
He went on to say that not alone in the public press, but 
in other departments of public life, did he observe some of 
the evils of the American system — mentioning particularly 
the manifestly growing practice of lobbying being substitu- 
ted for petitioning Parliament ; but he expressed his convic- 
tion that the cause of constitutional government was gaining 



92 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

ground every day, and that if the representatives of the people 
were true to themselves and to the people, it would be shown 
that there never was a community sounder at the core than 
ours, or one more ready to make sacrifices for the institu- 
tions which they prized. Keturning to a consideration of 
the probable future of Canada., he said it was for the people 
of the country, with the precedent of England and the 
example of the American republic before them, to decide 
which should be the prevailing character of our government 
— British constitutional or American democratic. Tor his 
part he preferred the British constitutional government, not 
because it was called British, but because it was the best ; 
and he rejected the republican constitutional, not because it 
was called republican, but because it was not the best. He 
pointed out that we were now witnessing a great epoch in 
the New World's history, and that the events daily transpi- 
ring around us should teach us not to rely too much upon 
our present position of secure independence, but rather to 
apprehend and be prepared for attempts against our liberties 
and against that system of government, which he was con- 
vinced was cherished by the great mass of the people of the 
Province. In conclusion, he said he left the subject with 
his audience. He had but sketched it in outline. He was 
embarrassed, not with the meagreness, but with the richness 
and fulness of the topic, and the amplitude of the material 
connected with it. He had already spoken in seven of the 
principal towns in Canada, and in the principal cities of the 
maritime Provinces, on the same text, and every time, of 
itself, it suggested something new. He only wished it had 
been presented in a measure better worthy of their attention : 
but at all events a subject more important and really de- 
serving of contemplation, however treated, could not have 
been offered than "the Future of Canada/' 



BISHOP'S COLLEGE, LENNOXVILLE, GE. 

Eemarks made at the Annual Convocation oe the University of 
Bishop's College, Lennoxville, C.E., June 27th, 1864. 

Your Excellency, Mr. Chancellor, Ladies and Gentle- 
men : — I must confess that when I accepted the kind 
invitation of the Chancellor of Bishop's College, and when 
yesterday I left Quebec, I had hoped that for a season at 
least, I had left the duties of a public speaker altogether 
behind me. Besides, Mr. Chancellor, though not wholly 
unaccustomed to being called to my feet at a moment's 
notice elsewhere, this is an occasion and a presence in 
which I should shrink from anything like unconsidered or 
ill-considered speaking. It may, perhaps, be doubted, if it 
is ever admissible for a man to speak without some degree 
of previous preparation — unless, indeed, he is forced to 
speak, as he may be forced to strike, in sheer self-defence. 
You have put me, sir, in that attitude, but I beg you to 
consider at what a disadvantage. You ought to consider 
whether or not I had my oratorical wardrobe with me. 
You ought to have considered that my thesis might be in 
my trunk at the Sherbrooke station. You will permit me, 
however, now that I have broken the ice (a most refreshing 
metaphor in this sort of weather), to enlarge for a moment 
on two ideas which were referred to by His Excellency in 
another place, and which have been fructifying in my mind 
ever since. They led to two trains of thought, one of 
which included the consideration of the material in- 
heritance, and the other the consideration of the mental 
inheritance of the young men of Canada. When I am 
told that this College has not yet completed its twentieth 
vear; when I consider that it stands almost within the 



94 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

shadow of the ancient pines which bowed to the same 
blasts that impelled Cabot and Cartier on their courses — 
when I reflect a moment on the riches which abound above 
the soil, in the soil, and under the soil of Canada, I cannot 
but think the merely material prospects of the young men 
of this country are prospects to be envied. And when I 
consider on the other hand our mental inheritance, — the 
conquering English speech, in which a man may travel 
round the world and find himself on no shore a stranger — 
when I think of the hived and hoarded wisdom of antiquity, 
made common to us all by the two magicians, moveable 
types and the steam press ; when I remember that although 
much has been lost, a priceless amount has been saved 
from the wreck of ancient schools and societies, I must 
again congratulate the fortunate youthhood of these Pro- 
vinces on their ample mental inheritance. One thing, also, 
ought not to be omitted; it is the glorious associations 
connected with our own home history. Patriotism will 
increase in Canada as its history is read. No province of 
any ancient or modern power — not even Gaul when it was 
a province of Eome — has had nobler Imperial names inter- 
woven with its local events. Under the Prench kings 
Canada was the theatre of action for a whole series of men 
of first-rate reputation — men eminent for their energy, their 
fortitude, their courage, and their accomplishments, for all 
that constitutes and adorns civil and military reputations. 
Under our English sovereigns — from the days of Wolfe to 
those of the late lamented Lord Elgin (to speak only of the 
dead), our great names are interwoven with some of the 
best and highest passages in the annals of the Empire. We 
have not, therefore, a history simply provincial, interesting 
only to the Provincials themselves ; but a history which 
forms an inseparable and conspicuous part in the annals of 
the best ages of the two first Empires in the world, Prance 
and England. I congratulate you, young gentlemen, natives 
of Canada, on that fact, and I trust you may years hence, at 
other convocations, when other dignitaries preside, and 
another age graduates, that you may be enabled to tell 
your successors how, even within your own time, a great 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 95 

step was taken towards the consolidation and advancement 
of British. North America in the good days when Lord 
Monck was Governor- General of Canada. Pardon me for 
having kept you so long, and be good enough to accept 
my most heartfelt thanks for your very kind and cordial 
reception. 



PROSPECTS OF THE UNION. 

Remarks at a Dinner given to the Canadian Parliamentary 
Excursionists to the Maritime Provinces, at the Drill-room, 
Halifax, N.S.,* August 14th, 1864. 

Mr. McGee said : Let me say at the outset that the 
idea of this visit did not originate with the Canadians ; 
the credit of the invitation and the merit of its con- 
ception are due to the citizens of St. John and of 
Halifax, headed, in the one case by Mr. Donaldson, and by 
your Mayor in the other. In the next place it would be 
unfair if I forgot to state that to the great railway of 
Canada and its public-spirited directors is also due the 
possibility of our carrying into execution the design of 
visiting these Provinces, in what I fear you must feel to be 
rather an invading host. 

Men have different objects of ambition ; some wish to be 
great orators, others artists, others to be distinguished in 
the naval or military services of their country ; but to be a 
good companion and a good fellow-traveller is surely a 
worthy ambition. There are some of our fellow-travellers, 
and some also of the sons of Nova Scotia, whom we all 
desire to hear, and I shall, therefore, make my speech very 
short. Though I believe I am a good comrade, yet I must 
say that I am afraid, judging from the present attachment 
of some of our company to this place, they intend to settle 
here, or else to deprive your city of some of its fairest 
treasures. I name no names ; I trust that having given 

* On an invitation from the Board of Trade of St. John, and the 
Mayor and citizens of Halifax, about a hundred Canadian gentlemen, mem- 
bers of Parliament, merchants, editors, &c.,had spent a month on a tour 
through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 97 

this intimation of their design, you will take all proper 
precautions to preserve the peace of the city. 

I will make one or two observations on secular matters, 
and first with respect to the public advantage to which this 
visit may be converted. I can say, as one of the persons 
representing one of the chambers of the Legislature of 
Canada, that we did not place any man under any political 
promise in asking him to join this excursion. There was 
no political design in the mind of those who sent the 
invitation or of those who accepted it. I am not myself 
here as a Minister of the Crown, but simply as a member 
of the Legislature ; but I may say that I hope, and every 
person present must also hope, that before any great length 
of time passes we shall have a practical commentary on the 
intercolonial hospitality of which we are now the recipients. 
My fears are that we may move too slowly. We do move 
slowly in British America. In some respects it is our safety 
— in some cases inertia is an excellent trait of national 
character, and it might be excellent now if our neighbour's 
house were not on fire; but being on fire, slowness in trying 
to prevent the dangerous element reaching us is nothing else 
than the act of a maniac. The man who can shut his eyes 
and blind his thoughts to the circumstances passing around 
him, is unworthy to have a place in the councils of these 
free Provinces. I repeat, I fear that we may move too slowly 
— that we may be overtaken by the coming Northern storm 
— that we may waste our time — that we may lose the 
golden moment of opportunity — which, it has been well 
said, is given to individuals and nations once in a lifetime, 
and which, if neglected, may never come again. I will add 
frankly, my hope for a better policy is in the character of 
the gentlemen who will meet at the proposed Charlottetown 
Conference. I don't know how far it will go. It must be 
a preliminary meeting of course. If it places us a step 
backward, I shall be grievously disappointed j if it puts us 
a step forward, we shall be greatly encouraged. My hope 
is in the character of the gentlemen who will assemble, — 
in their desire to sink merely local questions. Who will 
oppose — who are now opposed to our union ? Only those 



98 BKITTSH-AMERICAN UNION. 

who have a vested interest in their own insignificance. 
For, what is it we are called upon to sacrifice ? Nations 
have been called upon often to sacrifice much for the sake 
of religious and secular liberty — year after year, generation 
after generation, they have sent out the flower of their 
youth to die upon the battle-field in order that the patriot 
might be saved. But what are we called upon to sacrifice ? 
A few sectional prejudices, a few personal prejudices, some 
few questions of etiquette and precedence ! These we are 
asked to place upon the altar of general union for the 
benefit of the whole. The metropolitan Power, with a 
wisdom which we might well emulate, has invited us to 
ask the union as a boon that we might have for the asking, 
Eest assured, if we remain long as fragments, we shall 
be lost; but let us be united, and we shall be as a rock 
which, unmoved itself, flings back the waves that may be 
dashed upon it by the storm. Let me appeal to the press 
and public men of these Provinces, as I would to those of 
Canada. Don't aggravate the difficulties that lie ahead. 
Don't magnify particular obstacles that stand in the way of 
the leading spirits of the different Colonies — as I must call 
those who have devised this Conference ; for it is a Nova 
Scotia project, this idea of a Conference in respect to Union 
of the Colonies. I appeal to the press to back up those 
who have the moral courage to look the future in the face, 
and are endeavouring to protect these Provinces against the 
dangers that threaten them. I have had some experience 
of political life in America — both in the Northern States 
and in the Provinces — and I think I can prophecy — though 
it is a dangerous ground to venture on political prophecy — 
that we shall never take a decennial census again, either as 
British Colonies or independent States, except we have 
an union of one kind or other. 

Before I sit down you will permit me to say, in addition 
to what has been said by Monsieur Bureau who comes 
from Eastern Canada, and by Mr. McCrea who comes from 
the extreme west — from the borders of Lake St. Clair — 
that all of us, both those who are silent and those who 
speak, feel deeply the uniform kindness with which we 






ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 99 

have been treated since we have been here. I have 
been here before, and that was one reason why I was so 
anxious to come again. My friends have consulted me, 
and I have told them that this is the ordinary kindness of 
Nova Scotia ; and now, I think I may say for them, one 
and all, that their ambition is to be classed henceforth 
among your friends. You will permit me on their part to 
return our heartfelt thanks. Prom their Excellencies the 
Lieutenant-Governor, the Yice-Admiral, his Grace the 
Archbishop — from all classes of the citizens of Halifax, 
there has been nothing but one continued series of kind- 
nesses since we landed here. That kindness was not 
merely local, it met us beyond the borders of the Province 
— in the persons of our friends, Mr. Pryor, Mr. Coleman, 
and Mr. Wier. They took the trouble to pass the bounds 
of this Province to meet us, and therefore I think I may 
say your hospitalities surpass all bounds. 

Mr. McGee concluded by proposing the health of the 
Mayor and citizens of " Halifax the hospitable." 



h 2 



'SOME OBJECTIONS TO A CONFEDERATION 
OF THE PROVINCES CONSIDERED." 

Address delivered at Temperance Hall, Halifax, N.S., 
August 16th, 1864. 

Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen: Those whose 
opinions I have every reason to receive with deference, — 
those who, in this city, have ever been my kind friends, 
and who hold distinguished places among its citizens — 
have been pleased to say that an address on the subject 
which has been announced to you would be a useful and 
almost a necessary close to the Intercolonial festivities of 
the last fortnight. I have cheerfully yielded my opinion 
to theirs, and I am therefore to address you, on the subject 
announced — " Some Objections to a Confederation of the 
Provinces considered." 

In the first place, Ladies and Gentlemen, I must solicit 
your kind consideration for whatever you may find defective 
in the treatment of a subject, so limited even as this is. The 
festivities of which we, from Canada, have been the objects 
for several days past, were not, as you may well imagine, 
the best possible preparation for the discussion of the most 
important public question ever submitted to the people of 
these Provinces. I should, I am free to own, have liked 
more time for uninterrupted reflection, but the commands 
laid on me were irresistible, and I am here, on short notice, 
to do the best in my power. 

I shall come at once, with your leave, to the matter in 
hand — the much-talked-of Confederation. The proposal 
though not very new is yet not at all definite ; it is there- 
fore liable to all sorts of conjecture; all sorts of notions 
are afloat about it, and will continue to be afloat until the 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 101 

scheme acquires something like consistency, when we may 
fairly look for two great natural parties, Unionists and 
anti-Unionists, ranging themselves on opposite sides of the 
broad field which will then be fairly open for our dis- 
cussion. 

At the outset I must observe upon the danger we all run 
of attaching some arbitrary existing meaning to the terra 
"Confederation" itself. Of confederations there may be, 
and there have been, as many varieties as of consolidated 
monarchies. England is a monarchy — so is Russia ; but 
how unlike ! The Netherlands were a confederacy, with 
an hereditary head ; Switzerland is a confederacy without 
any permanent head, hereditary or elective ; the neighbour* 
ing States are a confederacy, with an elective head, supreme 
for his time over the army and navy and the administration 
of affairs. It is not absolutely necessary that our British 
American Confederacy — if it should be called into existence 
— should reproduce the American, the Swiss, or the Dutch 
model ; we ought to be able — I trust our leading men are 
able — to strike out a new creation from the same fruitful 
source of free governments, to plant amongst us a new 
variety of the same famous stock, suited to our soil and 
congenial to our climate. Why should they not ? What 
are the principal objections which have so far developed 
themselves ? Two or three of the chief I will endeavour to 
state fairly and discuss fairly, and it will be for you to 
decide with what effect, for I believe I need hardly say to 
you, I am a friend and earnest advocate of a strong and 
speedy Confederation. 

I. The first objection winch meets one in society is 
very naturally this — -the inherent weakness of Confederacies 
themselves, as illustrated in the failure of the South American 
and the disruption of the North American Confederacies. 
It must be admitted that the South American Confederacies 
were short-lived — were in fact mere abortions — that they 
died almost as soon as their existence was proclaimed ; it 
must be confessed, too, that the great Northern Confederacy 
has been driven to submit to a dictator at the real presence 
of domestic danger ; but, as I said before, Confederacies 



102 BRITISH- AMEEICAN UNION. 

are of many kinds, and the question, therefore, is many- 
sided. 

Eeasoning after the fact, it is easy to be wise, and 
reasoning on a familiar case, it is easy to be eloquent. 
The example of the Northern American States which, less 
than a century ago, were " sister colonies " of Nova Scotia 
and Canada, may serve as a guide as well as a warning to 
us. For the present purpose we will pass over the Spanish 
Bepublics, where there has been a failure of civilisation 
rather than a failure of the federal system, and we will 
consider only the familiar example of the States. They 
broke away forcibly from the body of the Empire, — I will 
not say without justification ; but having broken away, the 
generation that succeeded this violent separation set their 
hearts upon making their society as unlike Europe as 
possible. Now, I will not pretend to say that we should 
desire to mould America — even if it were possible, which it 
is not' — on the forms of Europe, — but I will venture to 
allege that Europe, in its positive Christianity, in its ancient 
learning, in its manners, and in its conservatism, presents 
to America many subjects for study, for imitation, and for 
admiration. When, therefore, the American Democrat of 
our century said in his heart, " I will make my country as 
unlike the rest of Christendom as I can," he said a vain 
and foolish thing, and his vanity and folly have brought 
their own punishment. Every one, of course, has his 
theory as to the disruption of that Confederacy, and you 
would probably like to hear my theory. Well, it is this : 
Every constitution we have any record of, placed the prin- 
ciple of infallibility, at least the seat of absolute last resort, 
— somewhere. In England, it is in the Queen in Council ; 
in the United States, it was placed in the Supreme Court. 
When, by their local legislation, a large portion of the 
States themselves rejected the doctrine of the infallibility, 
the inviolability of their Supreme Court, when they broke 
down the very shrine of their constitution, the Government, 
with or without civil war, was overset. Now, supposing 
with this example before our eyes we were to form a Con- 
federation, why should we invite at a future day a like 



ADDKESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 103 

catastrophe ? Why not rather engraft into our system the 
essentially British principle of investing with inviolability 
the executive head of the State, — the Viceroy, Duke, or 
Prince, who might be selected to rule over us ? It is of 
the nature of an executive to be self-protective, and in 
according such a head all necessary powers, we but follow 
Nature, — a good guide, when well understood. I account 
for the failure of the American system to protect itself from 
domestic enemies, except by unconstitutional means, by the 
peculiar distribution and limitation of powers under that 
system, — not from the mere fact of its being a confederated 
rather than a consolidated Government. — But there is no 
possible compulsion upon us to make a similar distribution 
of powers. On the contrary, enlightened as we have been 
by late events, the natural result would be a Confederacy 
framed on different principles, in some respects, from the 
Republican Union. 

II. Another objection commonly urged against a union 
of these Provinces is the heavy public debt of Canada. It is 
true we owe above $67,000,000 ; but we are nearly if not 
quite 3,000,000 people; the assessed value of our real 
property alone exceeds $400,000,000; our revenue this 
year, if I am well informed, will considerably exceed our 
expenditure ; the average per head of our debt does not 
exceed yours in Nova Scotia, for your population; while 
half the millions we owe are solidly represented by our great 
public works, stretching from Lake Huron to the borders 
of New Brunswick. Though our debt is large, I do not 
admit that the burthens it imposes are unbearable, while I 
hope to show you on the other hand that the inducements 
we offer you to unite with us are neither specious nor in- 
considerable. Under a common tariff we would offer you a 
three-million market ; under the more intimate commercial 
system thus established we would offer to your young men 
connections and employments which no isolated Province 
can now afford them ; through us you would secure your 
share in the future of that great North-western territory 
which Lord Sterling estimated capable of sustaining a 
population of 20,000,000 of souls. These are material 



104 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

inducements to union ; but there is one of a nature rather 
less tangible, which yet I hold to be most important. As 
an element of our common security — as a contribution 
towards our mutual defence — it is impossible to attach too 
much importance to the moral effect of our union. Both 
on ourselves and on our neighbours the mere fact of our 
being united for purposes of defence would have a most 
salutary effect, and might go a long way to avert the 
attempts which might be made, with a greater prospect of 
success, against our estranged and isolated communities. 
As it is, we are bound up in each other's fate without being 
allied for each other's help — we are associated in danger, 
but not in preparation. If, therefore, I add the considera- 
tion of our mutal defence to the more material considerations 
of internal free trade, as an inducement to your union with 
Canada, I feel confident I am doing my duty at once to 
Canada and the Maritime Provinces. 

III. A third objection arises from the vast extent of 
country which it is proposed to bring, for general purposes, 
under one general Government. I do not underrate the 
difficulties arising from the straggling and outstretched 
nature of our territory. But modern science has fortu- 
nately provided us a remedy against this evil — in steam 
communication. This invaluable means of communication 
is, of itself, a reason for union, since we cannot absolutely 
command its good offices without clubbing our capital. 
It is not creditable to any of us, nor is it worthy of the 
enterprise of the Empire to reflect, that if a Canadian wishes, 
for example, to visit the North-west, he must be indebted 
to an American enterprise, and pay tribute to an American 
route ; while if he wishes to visit these Provinces, he must, 
as we all have done, be under .the same necessity of 
travelling over American soil, and sailing on American 
waters, to meet his fellow-subjects on the Atlantic ! This 
is a state of things which ought not to be allowed to con- 
tinue, and which I am persuaded will not be allowed, if 
Mr. Fleming's Intercolonial Survey should prove, as I have 
reason to believe it will prove, — that the long-desired 
highway can be built for a reasonable sum such as these 
Provinces can shoulder. Upon the feasibility of that road, 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 105 

I admit, the best answer to this objection depends, — an 
answer I will not anticipate ; but if it should be favourable, 
I beg, gentlemen, you will observe, that it brings even the 
most distant constituencies of British America as near to 
each other, in time, as the Scottish constituencies were to 
London in the last century, or as the Irish constituencies 
were, fifty years ago, to the same centre of authority. 

You will permit me now to refer to the general impression 
of many other difficulties in the way of. confederation. 
I shall not go in detail into the discussion of these diffi- 
culties, but I will simply ask, as one of my Canadian 
colleagues did on a critical occasion, " What are statesmen 
for, if not to remove difficulties ? " I have never heard — 
I do not think you have ever heard— of any state being 
founded or enlarged, or delivered from danger, except by 
surmounting difficulties. " But how to do it ? " Some 
one will ask, " What is your plan ? "* " What do you 
propose ?" I reply, for the hundredth time, here and 
elsewhere, that I do not presume to answer questions of 
this magnitude on my individual responsibility. I would 
proceed as our ancestors always proceeded, in such cases, 
by taking the sensus communis, with the sanction of the 
Crown, and I would not fear for the adequacy of the 
answer after common consultation. 

There will, Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, rest assured, be 
more than one Conference, before this momentous nego- 
tiation can be either completed or abandoned. What we 
want for the discussion of all the main particulars is our 
best men, irrespective of their party antecedents. The cry 
of British America at this hour should be " Men ! more 
men ! " not merely an increase of number, but an increase 
in quality as well as in quantity. Let me illustrate what 
I mean, by a remote allusion. Alcasus, who, for the lofty 
truths he uttered, and the music of his utterance, was 
called " the divine/' taught a free nation of antiquity, 
which, from smaller beginnings than ours, rose to fill a first 
place in history, that it was not in broad-armed navies, nor 
in battlemented walls, that the greatness of a state con- 
sisted, but in men, high-minded and brave, who knew their 



106 BRITISH- AMEKIC AN UNION. 

rights, and how to preserve them. Here, where we are 
now assembled, another form of the same thought presents 
itself to me : time was, when your noble harbour, the pride 
and boast of all British America, was burthened only by the 
transitory shadows of the cloud and the canoe, where now 
we see such broad-armed navies ride as never were dreamt 
of by the divine Alcseus. Its depths were as fruitful then 
as now — its tides as constant — its shores as sheltering; 
but the civilised man has succeeded to the savage, and 
even the face of Nature itself has changed, under the filial 
offices of her darling child — the European man. As in 
material triumphs, so it may be in political. Give us men 
— high-minded men — men who know their rights, and 
how to secure them — and we will change the moral and 
political aspect of British America as greatly and as bene- 
ficially as the physical aspect of the once barbarous 
Chebucto has been changed, since the foundation of the 
good city of Halifax. 

And now, Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have, 
however imperfectly, complied with the wishes of many 
valued friends, who desired that I should say a few parting 
words to you on this subject. By this time to-morrow the 
waters of the Bay of J^undy will be between our kind 
friends and us ; — before the end of the week, if it please 
God, we shall be back again in our Canadian homes, 
recounting the pleasant adventures we have had here and 
in New Brunswick. Will you permit me, before taking 
my leave, to utter one last word of appeal to the press and 
public of these Maritime Provinces ? Before I may be able 
to visit you again, it is possible, nay it is probable, the fate 
of British America, for all time to come, will be decided. 
So certain am I that the present moment is decisive of our 
fate — so certain that elements hostile to our future existence 
as free, but not democratic States, are in active existence — - 
so assured do I feel that the men who now sway our several 
councils mast save or sacrifice our future fortune — that 
once more I would beseech all to whom my feeble voice 
may reach, not to embarrass this great discussion by minor 
issues. On the contrary, as was said of old, "a great 






ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 107 

spirit befittetli a great fortune." I trust our press and our 
public men will exhibit now, in the crisis of our destiny, 
such a spirit, and that the Great Ruler of all things may, 
in His infinite wisdom, dispose the hearts of our statesmen 
to seek above all the true good of the people they govern, 
and to sink out of sight everything trivial and temporary, 
personal and mercenary, for the sake, the sole sake, of our 
glorious British America — for the sake of justice, and peace, 
and freedom, and Christian civilisation. If, in conclusion 
(said the hon. gentleman) — if we are indeed of the race 
who began that work of civilisation twenty centuries ago 
in the British Isles, in a soil originally so unfavourable, 
with implements so inferior to what we now possess, and 
who from such beginnings have worked out such stupen- 
dous results — if we are worthy to represent that race — 
then we shall repeat on a larger scale, commensurate with 
the largeness of the basis on which we are to raise our 
structure, the constitutional triumphs of that race, in 
reconciling liberty with law, in domesticating justice with 
freedom, in crowning a fair and venerable authority by the 
voice and hand of an intelligent, self-governed population. 



THE CAUSE OF THE QUEBEC CONFERENCE. 

Speech at the Dejeuner given to the Members op the Quebec 
Conference, at Montreal, October 29th, 1864. 

Mr. McGee said lie had no intention at that late hour, 
and after their long sitting in Conference that afternoon, to 
detain them. When they were in the Lower Provinces 
their hospitable entertainers, many of whom they were glad 
to see to-night, were, on all occasions, pleased to hear 
Canadians speak and themselves to listen. He thought, as 
far as he (Mr. McGee) was concerned, he would best dis- 
charge his duty in showing himself a good host by being a 
good listener. However, as the Canadian politician who 
earliest made the acquaintance of some of the gentlemen 
now here, as one who had been, in an humble way, a 
pioneer of this gathering of the British North American 
family, he could not, as the only one of the members for 
Montreal present at this moment, who had not spoken, allow 
the meeting to separate without giving his hearty endorse- 
ment to every word of welcome addressed from the chair 
and by the various speakers to their friends from the coast 
Colonies. They were welcome to Canadians as fellow- 
subjects long estranged from them, and now, he hoped, 
about to be united. They were welcome to Canadians on 
their own account, as accomplished gentlemen, and of their 
accomplishments and powers the meeting had had this 
evening some evidence. They were still more welcome to 
Canada on account of the colonies of Newfoundland, New 
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and of the 
communities there which they represented. As far as he 
was concerned, he would make no mystery of what brought 
them here, or of the business with which they were en- 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 109 

gaged. They were doubly welcome, to himself, as one of 
the representatives of the first city of British North America, 
for the work of union in which they were now engaged. 
He was told that some of the citizens had often asked, Why 
this Conference at Quebec with closed doors ? Why all 
this mystery ; why this gathering together from the ends of 
British America of all the leading public men ? Why were 
the several Governors of the Provinces eastward deprived of 
the benefit of the advice of their responsible advisers, that 
they should be thus gathered together at Quebec holding 
close council together ? Parties said they elected these 
gentlemen to administer the government and laws as they 
exist, and not to frame new constitutions. Why, it was 
asked, had these gentlemen come here to sketch out, as 
was reported, the lines of a new constitution? If asked 
the reason why, he would give the reason in one word, the 
same which the visitor to St. Paul's was called upon to 
read on searching for the monument of Sir Christopher 
Wren — circumspice ! Look around, and they would see 
the reasons for this gathering. Look at the valleys of 
Virginia, at the uplands of Georgia ; look around in this 
age of earthquake and political perturbation in North 
America. Look at the men in these Provinces who were 
called its statesmen, whom Great Britain had warned 
solemnly and repeatedly through the press and Parliament, 
and by direct official notification, that if the Provincials did 
not provide adequately for the exigencies of their present 
new condition, England would hold herself blameless for 
the consequences. Why, she had given us all warning that 
things could not go on in future as in the past. If they 
wanted to see reasons for the present Conference let them 
look across the border, and they would find reasons as 
thick as blackberries why they should meet as they did and 
engage in the work which had for some time occupied 
them. It was now necessary, having gone so far, that 
they should have with them the cordial and united support 
of the public opinion and the public voice of the great city 
of Montreal, the heart and brain of Canada. He trusted, 
too, they would have the support of the majority of 



110 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

all the intelligent people of Canada, of whatever origin, 
creed, or race. This was not a time for questions about 
creeds, or origins, or races, but a time either to save or 
ruin British North America. If its fate were not decided 
within this decade by its own act, in one sense assuredly it 
would be, and perhaps not to their satisfaction. If the 
thirty-three delegates had presumed to go into the Chamber 
in Quebec to sketch an outline to be submitted to Her 
Majesty in Council and the Imperial Parliament, before 
which submission it was not right it should be submitted 
in any kind of detail to the people of these Provinces — if 
they had gone into that room in a time of profound peace 
to sketch a new basis of constitution for these Provinces — 
they found their justification in the circumstances, in the 
peculiar position, in which the British American Colonies 
stood towards Republican North America, and in the inti- 
mations, official and unofficial, respecting our duties as to 
self-defence, conveyed to us for the last three years from 
the most undoubted sources — from the Government of the 
Empire itself. The Conference had acted, not in an em- 
pirical spirit — they had not gone into Council to invent 
any new system of Government, but had entered it with a 
reverent spirit to consult the oracles of the history of their 
race. They had gone there to build, if they built at all, 
on the old foundations. They desired not to build an 
edifice with stucco front and lath and plaster continuations, 
but a constitutional edifice upon a basis of solid British 
masonry, solid as the foundation of the Eddystone Light- 
house, which would bear the whole force of the democratic 
winds and waves, and the corroding political atmosphere of 
the New World, and which they hoped would stand for ages, 
a vindication of the solidity of their institutions and of the 
legitimacy of their origin. In their (the British N. A.) 
political architecture, he trusted they would vindicate the 
honour of the races from which they sprung, the Norman, 
the Saxon, the Celt, the homely, vigorous, fearless Scandi- 
navian, and all the races that had gone to make up the 
great concrete called the population of the British Empire. 
He trusted that the British N. A. political architecture 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. Ill 

would not be a plagiarism of republicanism, and not fulfil 
the predictions so freely showered upon them by some of 
the New York journals, that the proposed union would be 
simply democracy in disguise ; but that we should not only 
acknowledge the monarchical principle, but construct an 
edifice with British connection as the corner-stone, and 
freedom as the main wall of the structure ; and make the 
people feel their freedom was connected with a due respect 
for authority and the throne, as well as for those who 
represented here authority and the throne. In answer to 
the well-wishing editor of the New York Albion, who had 
cautioned Canadians against premature rejoicings over the 
degree of success they had attained, as they had done with 
regard to the laying of the Atlantic telegraph cable a few 
years ago, he (Mr. McGee) would venture to assure the 
editor they had not been experimenting and sounding out 
of their depth as those who laid the cable did. The 
members of the Conference had not been together so far 
without having a fair indication of what each other's 
opinions and sentiments were. They wanted no electrical 
stimulus from England, having only to touch Magna Charta 
and the Bill of Eights to receive all the inspiration or im- 
pulse they wanted in their present labours. So long as 
they had that electrical inspiration in their libraries, at 
their sides, they would always know what was thought in 
England of the work they had been doing at Quebec. In 
going back to their constituents, he said to their honoured 
guests, not as an Upper Canadian or as a Lower Canadian, 
for he had always said the Province line was abolished before 
he came to Canada, and if it was never drawn again till he 
drew it, either socially, politically, or any other way, it 
would remain undrawn long enough — he said to them, not 
simply as a citizen or representative of Montreal, nor even 
as an inhabitant of Canada, but as one who desired, and 
had laboured, in his humble way, to bring about this very 
spectacle which they to-night witnessed — he would say 
fearlessly and unreservedly on the part of Canada, that 
Canada, he firmly believed, sought this alliance, not from 
mercenary motives, but from a sentiment of common de- 



112 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

fence. If they, on their part, came into this union, as lie 
thought they would, well dowered and in such a manner 
that no one of the partners could ever upbraid them with 
their having come in a subordinate position — they could 
say that if Canada desired this union, which he believed 
she did, although the public mind of the country was not 
yet fully formed upon the subject, she went into it for no 
selfish, small, or mercenary purpose; and they could say 
for the public intelligence of Canada, and especially for the 
city of Montreal, that we were year by year, and every year, 
becoming more enlarged and liberalised in our views ; that we 
were becoming less angry and hostile as sects and classes; that 
we were becoming better friends, and that now all men agreed 
that we could go where we liked on Sunday, or nowhere at 
all, if we liked that better ; but that, at all events, on 
week-days, in our business and social relations, we bore 
ourselves as one people, with one heart and faind, for the 
commonweal. They could say that in Canada religious 
bigotry was at a discount ; and if they wished for illustra- 
tion, he could point his finger and show where the bigot 
had withered on his stalk, and where once he had a great 
show of power and influence, now were " none so poor as 
do him reverence." Bigots of all kinds, Catholic as well 
as Protestant ; bigots of all classes, on all sides ; bigots of 
race, who believed that no good could come out of the 
Nazareth of any other origin but their own, — their day of 
small things — God knew how small — had passed for ever 
in Canada. Every man was willing to respect every other 
man's convictions. We had, at least, reached that degree 
of self-government, and shown ourselves to be in the best 
sense civil and religious freemen, fit for self-government, 
by allowing every man of every creed and sect and race to 
manage his • own affairs in his own way, and to wash his 
own dirty linen in his own back-yard, so that it did not 
trouble the neighbours or disturb the peace of the com- 
munity. He thought their guests from below might assure 
their neighbours when they returned, that if they united 
with us they would find all that in Canada — religious com- 
bined with political liberty. He was sorry they had been 






ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 113 

so long confined in the political laboratory at Quebec that 
they would not have time before the necessities of the 
season compelled them to return to their homes to see 
what went to make up this great Province — great in re- 
sources, great in extent, but greater still in the promise it 
seemed to hold out, that here in British North America we 
should establish true freedom — not freedom fair without 
but foul within, but that true freedom that gave every man 
his private and personal rights, consistent with the private 
and personal rights of others. They might say to their 
constituents, that if Canada went into this union she went 
into it mainly with a view to promote the common pros- 
perity, to secure the common safety, and to establish the 
common liberties of all British North America. 



GROWTH OF MONTREAL, AND ITS 
REQUIREMENTS. 

A few Remarks to the Montreal Caledonian Society, 
October 30th, 1863. 

Me. McGee, after some humorous remarks in relation to 
the hall (the " Crystal Palace "), said : I quite agree with 
my honourable friend, Mr. Ferrier, that meetings of this 
description are fit subjects for congratulation; for surely 
nothing can be more agreeable than to see large assemblies 
conducted with the utmost order — than to see Care forget 
its burthen, and Old Age grow young as the night wanes 
on, and Memory going back to our earliest and happiest 
recollections, playing the physician's rather than the tor- 
mentor's part. I have myself seldom missed attending any 
of these secular festivals, and I cannot feel that an evening 
is thrown away when it is spent in observing and in sharing 
the recreations of large classes of our fellow-citizens. The 
character of our countrymen of Erench origin for gaiety of 
heart is proverbial throughout America, and I cannot, for 
my part, see any reason why, on an occasion, a Scotchman 
or an Irishman may not be as gay as a Frenchman. Lower 
Canada is remarkable for many things — for long winters, 
sudden springs, and rapid vegetation, — long may it be 
spoken of also as the home of a happy and united people, 
in whatever language they may meet to exchange their 
congratulations. It is well for us to know, as we now do 
for certain, that there is gold on the Chaudiere and anti- 
mony on Lake Nicolet, but it is even better still to feel, as 
I do standing here to-night, that there is a growing feeling 
of brotherhood among our whole population — that there is 
a sense of security and a day-spring of gladness in the 






ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASION \ 115 

hearts of our people. I speak now especially of Montreal, 
in the social economy of which the Caledonian Society plays 
an important part, and might be made to perform even a 
more important part. This Society provides its members 
during the summer months with free admission to the 
gymnasium of our deserving townsman, Mr. Guilbault, 
and, if but for this privilege alone, I wonder there should 
be a young Scotsman in the city who does not belong to 
it. If all those who might and ought to be were members 
of the Society, I have no doubt that in other directions, as 
well as works of charity and athletic exercises, the useful- 
ness of the Society would be co-extensive with the city. 
All the sister societies represented on this platform ought 
to grow as the city grows, and we are apt to boast that no 
city on the Continent is growing more steadily and solidly 
than Montreal. I should wish for my part to live to see 
it extend from Hochelaga to Lachine, but not simply to 
idolise its vast dimensions. I prefer the gods of the 
Greeks, nearly of human size, to the gigantic gods of 
Assyria ; and a city is no more worshipful for the number 
of acres it covers — or the size of its cemeteries — than an 
idol from Nineveh for being forty feet high. I would 
desire to see our city (for its character is in the crucible) 
provide itself with all possible appliances of physical and 
mental culture, as well as grain elevators and street rail- 
ways. With 120,000 inhabitants, an opera house, a public 
library, and a gallery of art ought very soon be within our 
means, for without books, music, and pictures, neither the 
eye, nor the ear, nor the understanding of man is of much 
more value to civilisation than the senses of dead genera- 
tions are to the people of the living age. Pardon me, Mr. 
President, for speaking so serious a speech at your festival, 
but we have had our laugh both at the " dippers " and the 
" snappers," and I know that a plea for blending the utile 
with the dulce is never out of place in a society of Scots- 
men. A word or two now upon the modern uses of this 
festival of Hallowe'en, which Burns has immortalised in 
verse, and Maclise upon canvas. The ancient super- 
stitious rites which the bard has celebrated have vanished 

i 2 



116 BEITISH-AMEEICAN UNION. 

one by one out of the by-ways even of the old world ; but 
the old, good, kindly, neighbourly feeling — the old here- 
ditary humour, the old love of social enjoyment — remain, 
I hope, unimpaired and unchanged. The original of the 
scene that Burns drew was a Scottish peasant cottage of 
the middle of the last century — 

" Amang the bonnie winding banks, 
Where Doon rins, whimplin, clear, 
Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks 
An' shook his Carrick spear." 

While the scene we witness here to-night, which owes so 
much to the spell of his genius, is contained within what 
w r e are apt to call, a little magniloquently, our "Crystal 
Palace," without any of the romantic surroundings or his- 
torical associations of the original. But I trust we are not 
less happy in our lot here, in the new country in which 
that lot has been cast, than were the "merry, friendly, 
kintra folk" whose pranks and joys he so heartily ap- 
proved* 






THE GERMANS IN CANADA. 

Address to the German Society, City Concert Hall, Montreal, 
December 7th, 1864. 

Mr. McGee said : Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle- 
men, — My friend Mr. Lomer has been kind enough to 
devolve upon me the principal part of the duty of address- 
ing you, according to an established local custom in 
Montreal on these occasions. He has spoken for himself 
and for the German Society; and while I fully agree with 
all he has said as to the importance of such a society for 
the protection of the immigrant and the promotion of 
German interests generally — while I cordially concur in 
the satisfaction he has expressed at the excellent under- 
standing which exists among all our national societies (and 
long may that good feeling continue) — I am sure he will 
allow me to say that, so far as I am informed, I consider 
the Grand Trunk Company acted well and wisely in volun- 
tarily settling, instead of litigating, all the claims that 
could be brought against them arising out of the recent 
deplorable accident to German immigrants at Beloeil.^ I 
think the German and other societies also did well in con- 
curring in that settlement. I think it was well they were 
present, acting in concert, and I must again express my 
sincere hope that their cordial good understanding may 
always continue. While we see and deplore in the chief 
city of Upper Canada, Toronto, hostile societies organised 
and, it is said, armed against each other, striving, as it 
would appear, who should do most to disturb and exasperate 



* By the opening of the drawbridge at Beloeil, in which some ninety 
lives of German immigrants had been sacrificed. 



118 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

eacli other, let it still be our pride and boast that our 
Montreal societies, of whatever origin or whatever religion, 
are rivals only in acts of benevolence and efforts at im- 
provement. The firmness and forbearance of a few in- 
dividuals on both sides might have given Toronto the same 
cheering tale to tell that we have here ; and I must say, for 
my own part, that those in Toronto who have most in- 
fluence with their fellow -citizens, and who allow a great 
city like that to drift into a chronic state of strife and 
hatred, have much to answer for. In this city we have 
had and now have, and always must have, our differences ; 
but I am quite sure that any armed combination against 
any portion of our fellow-citizens, any combination against 
private or associated rights, and therefore against the law 
of the land, could, in the present temper of Montreal, be 
put down in forty-eight hours. I wish it were so in 
Toronto. I hope it may yet be so. It ought to be so ; 
and if the men of real influence in Toronto said the word, 
it would be so. You will allow me also, I hope, to express 
my acknowledgments to Professor Simon, whose musical 
accomplishments I have long been familiar with, for the 
surprise he has given me in introducing some old words of 
mine to his exquisite music, and to Herr Brandt, for the 
true feeling and taste with which (if I may be permitted to 
say so) he has rendered both words and music. I turn 
now to another topic, the proper topic of the evening — the 
German Society of Montreal, or rather the Germans in 
Canada. I have enjoyed the warm, whole-hearted hos- 
pitality of the chief German settlement in Canada, in the 
county of Waterloo, when they were represented by my 
able and truly liberal-minded countryman, the Hon. Mr. 
Foley, who, I regret to say, is no longer in public life in 
this country. I have seen the flourishing German settle- 
ments of the United States, from Pennsylvania to Wis- 
consin, and knowing the universal character of those settlers 
— their patient industry, their peaceable demeanour, their 
power of endurance, and their love of freedom — I have 
naturally desired to see a large increase of German immi- 
gration to this country. The Fatherland, with its fifty 



ADDEESSES ON VAEIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 319 

millions, must, in the future as in the past, throw off a 
large annual efflux of its hardy and docile population. 
Whether that efflux finds its way to the Ocean by the Elbe 
or the Oder, or the Rhine, from north or south or centre — 
from Catholic States or Protestant — I only wish we could 
attract them to our shores, and keep them here, at some- 
thing like the same rate as they do in the United States. 
And why do we not? Because, in the first place, the 
name of Canada is not as familiar to the Germans at home 
as the larger and louder sounding name of America; be- 
cause at Hamburg and Bremen, at Antwerp and Amster- 
dam, the name of Montreal is not as familiar as the name 
of New York. And we shall continue in a great degree to 
labour under this disadvantage until the great work in 
which our public men have recently been engaged — the 
union of all British America — is successfully accomplished. 
Then British America will be large enough; its field of 
labour will be diversified enough ; its name will sound dis- 
tinctly enough in the Old World's ear, to divide with the 
United States the attention of the emigrating classes all 
over Germany. One other thing we want, to bring 
about this result, and that is a fair and generous estimate 
of the German mind and the German character. A Celt 
myself, I should be the last man living to admit an innate 
inferiority in the Celtic race to any other; but I admit 
disparity, dissimilar gifts, and dissimilar powers. I hope 
I am sufficiently a citizen of the world to see and acknow- 
ledge the strong points of the German character, to admit 
the great services rendered by them in art and letters — in 
practical as well as in speculative science — to the rest of 
the world. Nothing used to astonish me more in the 
United States than the popular error that, to use the 
popular phrase, "the Dutch" were an unintellectual people. 
It used to remind me of the old story of the practical joke 
played off early in the last century, by a Prince of Wur- 
temberg upon his acquaintances in Venice, while Venice 
was yet proud and free of Austria, who had indulged very 
freely in disparaging his countrymen. He invited them to 
supper, and afterwards to a theatrical entertainment. This 



120 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

piece, got up for the occasion, represented a street in 
Yenice, with a solitary lamp burning at a door. The ghost 
of Cicero was discovered flitting in and out of the shadows, 
when a German traveller entered, and endeavoured to get 
admittance to the lighted house. Tailing to get in, he 
pulled out his watch to learn the hour ; he then took out 
a printed book and began to read by the lamp ; till, at last, 
becoming impatient, he drew his pistol and fired in the 
air to awaken the Italians. At this the ghost of Cicero, 
who had watched all the German's movements, asked for 
explanations, which were given ; and then Cicero demanded, 
if the barbarians of the north had, since his age, invented 
the timepiece, printing, and gunpowder, what had the 
Italians invented ? And at this point a Savoyard entered 
on the scene, crying out, "Heckles ! Heckles ! Heckles I" 
This was a very proper rebuke to the arrogance of that 
particular company, though it was far from just to the 
Italians as a people. If we are to succeed in forming a 
new Confederation of the North, in establishing a free and 
united Monarchy upon the basis of these separated Pro- 
vinces, we shall only do so by being just to all men, of 
every origin, speech, and creed, who may desire to come 
amongst us, to aid in that great work. The general idea 
of a Confederate government is already familiar to the 
German mind, from your experience in Switzerland and 
the Netherlands, and the German Confederation, proper — 
though the last one is rather a league than a union — a 
Staatenhunde than a Bundesstaat. It is an idea which 
combines what the Germans have always cherished — free- 
dom, with what they have always striven for — unity. Not 
only by its grandeur and prestige but by its security, is it 
well calculated to attract and interest a thoughtful people, 
whose migrations, judging from the fruitfulness of the 
stock, are as yet far from the end. If we may infer the 
part they are destined to play from the part they have 
played, then we could wish our country no better gift, than 
a large infusion of the Germanic element. On this point, 
if you will allow me (as to the past), I will refer to one of 
the greatest names of our times, the late Dr. Arnold of 






ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 121 

Bugby, one of the most thorough and most fearless readers 
of history since Niebuhr's death. In his inaugural address 
as Professor of Modern History at Oxford, delivered in 
1841, Dr. Arnold showed that Christendom in the fourth 
century possessed all the intellectual treasures of Greece, all 
the political wisdom of Eome, and all the ethics of Chris- 
tianity, but it wanted the German element ; that the Middle 
ages bore an undoubted German character ; that the influ- 
ence of this element was still felt, and would long continue 
to be felt, " for good or for evil, in almost every country in 
the civilised world." As we pretend in British America to 
belong to the civilised world, and as I believe that influence 
which Dr. Arnold describes would be for good, I repeat my 
hope and expectation, that the new era in our internal 
government may prove a new source of attraction to draw 
and to settle large numbers of Germans in our future Con- 
federacy. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I will not dwell 
further on these topics, because though they are above all 
party politics, still I do not wish to obtrude even general 
politics on any occasion not specially set apart for such 
discussions. I thank you most gratefully for your very 
cordial reception, and I congratulate myself on being in 
the city, and being able to be present at and to take part in 
this first public festival of the German Society of Montreal. 
You have made a good beginning, gentlemen, and I can 
only say, what we all shall be saying two or three weeks 
from now, that I wish you, from my heart, " many happy 
returns" of your benevolent festival. 



SPEECH AT COOKSHIKE, COUNTY OF 
COMPTON, DECEMBER 22, 1864. 

On the Occasion of a Public Dinner to Mr. J. H. Pope, 

Member for Common. 

Hon. Mr. McGee said : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, 
I promised my respected friend, your county member, Mr. 
Pope, to meet him at the recent public dinner given to my 
colleague, Mr. Gait, at Sherbrooke, and to come over here 
with him to Compton to speak to you on the subject of 
British- American Union. I was, greatly to my regret, 
prevented, by a sudden and sharp illness, from being pre- 
sent at the Sherbrooke dinner ; for there is no public man 
in Canada whose services to the Union deserve all honour- 
able acknowledgment more than Mr. Gait ; and there is no 
place in the country I had rather discuss this question than 
in " the Eastern Townships." * I am here to make good 
your member's promise in my behalf, and I am deeply 
thankful that I am able to be here, and have still a voice 
to raise in behalf of this cause. This is a border county — 
it is a county actually undergoing colonisation — it is the 
home of a mixed people, various in origin, in language, 
and in creed ; and, therefore, a very fit place to consider 
propositions which must interest men of all languages, 
origins, and creeds, which involve all our future relations 
among ourselves and with our neighbours, internal and 
external. So far as I can help it, gentlemen, I will not 
trouble you with what has been said before by my col- 



* The " Eastern Townships " form that portion of Lower Canada lyiDg 
between Montreal and the American line. They were settled by •' Town- 
ships," not by "Parishes," as in French-speaking Lower Canada. 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 123 

leagues in the government at other meetings, but I will 
endeavour to give you my own views on the nature of the 
constitutional developments which have been projected by 
the late Colonial Conferences, to show on what principle 
the project stands, to illustrate by comparison and contrast 
the merits of our design, and to show, in closing, its special 
adaptability to our present situation as British American 
Provincial communities. 

At the start I cannot but congratulate the people of all 
the Provinces on the fortunate conjunction of circumstances 
which makes this the best possible time for a searching exa- 
mination and a thorough overhauling of our political system. 
When I was in the Maritime Provinces last summer — when 
the Conferences were still a thing to come — I appealed on 
behalf of the project to the press and the public there, that 
it should not be prejudged, and I must say I think a very 
great degree of forbearance and good feeling was manifested 
in this respect. But I should be sorry, speaking for myself, 
now that the stage of intelligent discussion has been reached, 
now that we have got something before us to discuss, that 
such a vast scheme should pass, if that were possible, sub 
silentio. So far from deprecating discussion now, I should 
welcome it, for there could not be, there never can be, a 
more propitious time for such a discussion than the present 
Under the mild sway of a Sovereign, whose reign is coin- 
cident with responsible government in these colonies — a 
sovereign whose personal virtues have rendered monarchical 
principles respectable even to those who prefer abstractly 
the republican system — with peace and prosperity at pre- 
sent within our own borders — we are called on to consider 
what further constitutional safeguards we need to carry us 
on for the future in the same path of peaceable progression. 

And never, surely, gentlemen, did the wide field of 
American public life present so busy and so instructive a 
prospect to the thoughtful observer as in this same good 
year of grace, 1864. Overlooking all minor details, what 
do we find — the one prevailing and all but universal charac- 
teristic of American politics in those days? Is it not that 
" Union " is at this moment throughout the entire new 



124 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

world the mot d'ordre of States and statesmen ? If we 
look to the far South, we perceive a Congress of Central 
American States endeavouring to recover their lost unity; 
if we draw down to Mexico, we perceive her new Emperor 
endeavouring to establish his throne upon the basis of 
union; if we come farther north, we find eleven States 
battling for a new Union, and twenty-five on the other side 
battling to restore the old Union. The New World has 
evidently had new lights, and all its States and statesmen 
have at last discovered that liberty without unity is like 
rain in the desert, or rain upon granite — it produces nothing, 
it sustains nothing, it profiteth nothing. Prom the bitter 
experience. of the past, the Confederate States have seen the 
wisdom, among other things, of giving their ministers seats 
in Congress, and extending the tenure of executive office 
fifty per cent, beyond the old United States period. From 
bitter experience, also, the most enlightened, and what we 
may consider the most patriotic among the Mexicans, 
desiring to establish the inviolability of their executive as 
the foundation of all stable government, have not hesitated 
to import, not " a little British Prince," as I have been 
accused of proposing, but an Austrian Archduke, a descend- 
ant of their ancient kings, as a tonic to their shattered con- 
stitution. Now, gentlemen, all this American experience, 
Northern, Southern, and Central, is as accessible to us as 
to the electors of Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Davis, or the subjects 
of the Emperor Maximilian : it lies before us, an open 
volume, and invites us to well read, and mark, and digest 
its contents. It was with a view to contribute my mite at 
the present stage of the discussion, that I accepted Mr. 
Pope's kind invitation, and am now here to offer you as 
clear a view as I can put into words, of the process of rea- 
soning and observation by which those who composed the 
late Conferences arrived at the decisions at which they have 
arrived, in relation to the constitution and powers of govern- 
ment in the future Confederation. You have probably all 
read in the newspapers what purported to be the text — and 
it was very near the text — of the conclusions arrived at. 
You have no doubt all read Mr. Brown's explanations at 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 125 

Toronto, and Mr. Gait's further explanations at Sherbrooke ; 
you have probably also seen two other expressions of opinion, 
on the general question, in the journals of the day, one from 
the Honourable Mr. Dorion, who is opposed to all union, 
except some sort of Federation of the Canadas; another 
from the Honourable Mr. Hillyard Cameron, who would 
much prefer a legislative to a federative union. I don't 
say that if it could be had by common consent, I would 
not be prepared to agree with Mr. Cameron ; but a legis- 
lative union, under our circumstances, was simply out of 
the question. We might as well ask for the moon, and 
keep asking until we could get it. It was a question 
between some form of federative union or no union at all; 
and I am not at all prepared to say with Mr. Dorion — and 
never was — that the greater union is not the most desirable, 
if conditions can be settled satifactorily to all parties. It 
seems to me — and in saying so I intend no shadow of dis- 
respect to the honourable member for Hochelaga — that the 
man who can seriously maintain that union is not strength, 
that five or six comparatively small communities, owning a 
common allegiance, existing side by side on the same conti- 
nent, in the presence of much larger communities owning 
another allegiance, would not be stronger and safer united 
than separate, that such a one puts himself out of the pale 
of all rational argument. 

I will take as an instance of the irrationality of such an 
argument, the particular question, the great test question 
remaining between Canada and England — the question of 
defence. The future General Government has reserved to 
itself, saving the sovereignty of England, the control of our 
militia and military expenditure. Every one can see that a 
war with England and the United States would be largely 
a naval war, and such a naval war as the ocean has never 
before seen — a war that would interest and stir the heart of 
England even beyond the pitch that made her staid mer- 
chants astonish Lloyd's in 1813 with " three times three 
cheers/' when they heard that the Shannon had fought and 
captured, and carried the Chesapeake a prize into Halifax 
Harbour. Suppose, then, in the event of an invasion of 



126 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

our soil, either in Upper Canada or Lower Canada — sup- 
pose that a flotilla was needed on the St. Lawrence or on 
Lake Ontario ; that England could spare us the gunboats, 
but not the skilled seamen ; would it be no advantage to 
Canada to have the 50,000 Atlantic sailors of the Lower 
Provinces to call upon for their contingent ^to such a 
service ? No doubt the Empire could call on them now, 
but unless it restored the press-gang it could not make 
them come. But if by our union we gave that valuable 
class of men the feeling of common country ; if by the 
intercourse and commerce which must follow on our union, 
that feeling grew to the strength of identity, we would have 
enough help of that description — drawn from what my col- 
league, Hon. Mr. Cartier, calls the maritime element — for 
the asking. The Imperial power, having conceded to all 
the North American colonies responsible government, can 
only secure their co-operation, even in military measures, 
through those several local governments. Every one can 
see at a glance how much the Imperial power, and we our- 
selves, would gain in any emergency — if there were but two 
governments instead of five to be consulted — how much in 
promptitude, in decision, in time, in unanimity, and in 
effectiveness. I need not enlarge, I am sure, on so self- 
evident a proposition as this : the man that will not see it, 
will not : that is all I need add on that score. It has, 
indeed, been asserted by the sceptics in our work that all 
our theories of increased commercial intercourse are chi- 
merical ; and yet, oddly enough, these are the same people 
who think a commercial union would " secure all the bene- 
fits" of this chimerical prospect. Well, I will not meet 
assertion by assertion, but I will answer a conjecture by a 
fact. At the very time the member for Hochelaga was 
issuing his rather inconsistent declaration against a political 
union, as, among other reasons, wholly unprofitable in a 
commercial point of view, and in favour of a commercial 
union as all that was to be desired in itself, at that moment 
the first steamship, laden with breadstuffs, direct from 
Montreal to Newfoundland, was dropping down the St. 
Lawrence, as a result of the partial and brief intercourse 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 127 

brought about between the two communities through our 
Conference at Quebec ! That is a fact not very important 
in itself, perhaps, but very indicative of the possible useful- 
ness of union in a commercial point of view ! I may men- 
tion another fact : while we were lying in Charlottetown 
Harbour last September, our attention was called to the 
arrival of a fine ocean-going steamship — one of a regular 
line between Boston and Prince Edward's Island. The 
Boston people find the trade of that rich little island worth 
cultivating, and they do it. They know where there is 
produce and where there is a market, and they establish a 
line of steamers to run there; yet I am sure they sell 
nothing to the islanders which we, at half the distance, 
could not just as well supply them with from Quebec or 
Montreal. I repeat, however, I will not argue so plain a 
point as that, with provinces like ours, union is strength, is 
reputation, is credit, is security. I will just give one other 
illustration on this last head, and then I will drop the topic 
where it is. The security for peace which a large political 
organisation has over a small one, lies not only in its greater 
unity and disposable force, but in this other consideration, 
that the aggressor must risk or lose the benefit of much 
larger transactions in attacking a larger than in assailing a 
smaller state. If, for example, in our system of defence — 
in addition to all the Imperial Government could do for 
us — if we could, by our joint representative action, be sure 
to shut up simultaneously the River St. John upon the 
people of Maine, to exclude from the Gulf the fishermen of 
Massachusetts, to withhold from the hearths and furnaces 
of New England the coal of Cape Breton — no man can 
question but that we would wield several additional means 
of defence, not now at the command of Canada. And so 
with the Lower Provinces. If their statesmen could wield 
our forces and our resources in addition to their own, does 
any sane man pretend that would not be an immense gain 
to them in their hour of danger ? (Hear, hear.) I may 
be told, again, the Imperial Government can do all this for 
us if they will : I repeat that the Imperial Government 
alone can neither do any of these things so promptly, so 



128 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

fully, nor with so little trespass on our local responsible 
governments, as a united legislature could through an 
united public force, with the aid of a Federal treasury. I 
really, gentlemen, ought to beg your pardon, and I do so, 
for dwelling so long on the truism that union is, in our 
case, strength ; but as the first proposition to which we all 
agreed at the first Conference, I thought I would give some 
reasons why we had unanimously arrived at that result. 

Another objector opposes our project because Colonial 
Union is inconsistent with Imperial connexion. Well, to 
that we might answer that we are quite willing to leave it 
to the statesmen of the Empire themselves to decide that 
point. If England does not find it so, I think we may 
safely assume it is not so. And, in point of fact, the Impe- 
rial Parliament several years ago decided the question when 
they passed the New Zealand Constitutional Act, establish- 
ing six or seven local governments, under one general 
government, in that colony. Still another objector con- 
tends that the complement of Federalism is Eepublicanism, 
because most of the States with which we are familiar as 
Federal States are also Republics. But this objection is 
by no means unanswerable. It is true Switzerland is a 
republic in the sense of having no hereditary head, but 
the United Netherlands, when a Confederacy, were not a 
Eepublic in that sense. It is true the United States and 
Mexico, and the Argentine Federations, were all repub- 
lican in basis and theory ; but it is also true that the 
German Confederation is, and has always been, predomi- 
nantly monarchical. There may be half as many varieties 
of federal governments as there are states or provinces in 
the world ; there may be aristocratic federations, like the 
Venetian; or monarchical, like the German; or demo- 
cratic, like the United States: the only definition which 
really covers the whole species of governments of this 
description is, the political union of states of dissimilar size 
and resources, to secure external protection and internal 
tranquillity. These are the two main objects of all confede- 
racies of states, on whatever principles governed, locally or 
unitedly. Federalism is a political co-partnership, which 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 129 

may be, and has been formed by Monarchists, Aristocrats, 
and Democrats, Pagans and Christians, under the most 
various circumstances, and in all periods of human history. 
There may be almost as many varieties of confederation 
as of companies in private and social life. We say, with 
propriety too, " the company at the hotel," or " the 
company who own the hotel ; " but the organisation of 
each is widely different. Our Federation will be British : 
it will be of the fourth class of Lord Coke's division — 
for mutual aid. The only element in it not British is the 
sectional equality provided for in the Upper House — a 
principle which is known to be alike applicable to the 
democratic confederation next us, and the monarchical con- 
federation of Germany. 

One more objection which comes from an opposite 
quarter to the last, is that our plan is too stringently con- 
servative. Well, gentlemen, I can but say to that — if it be 
so — that it is a happy fault, which we may safely leave to 
the popular elements of our state of society to correct in 
time. It was remarked long ago by Lord Bolingbroke — 
and a greater than Bolingbroke has called it " a profound 
remark " — that it is easier to graft anything of a republic 
on a monarchy, than anything of monarchy on a republic. 
It is always easy in our society to extend democratic influ- 
ence and democratic authority ; but it is not always pos- 
sible — it is very seldom possible — ever to get anything back 
that is once yielded up to democracy. If, therefore, our 
plan should seem at first sight somewhat too conservative, 
I repeat my own opinion, that it is a happy fault, and the 
remedy may safely be left to time. So much, gentlemen, 
for what lawyers call the " general issue." 

Mr. Chairman, — You will probably like me to define 
that particular adaptation of the federal system which has 
lately found such high favour in the eyes of our leading 
colonial politicians. Well, this definition has been, I think, 
pretty accurately given in the published text — or what 
professes to be the text — of the results arrived at at Quebec. 
Don't be alarmed : I am not going to read you the whole 
seventy-two propositions : it will be quite sufficient for my 



130 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

purpose to give you, both by contrast and comparison, a 
broad, general view of what is and what is not included in 
our proposed constitutional charter. In the first place, I 
may say, gentlemen, to take the most familiar comparison, 
that we proceeded in almost an inverse ratio to the course 
taken in the United States at the formation of their consti- 
tution. We began by dutifully acknowledging the sove- 
reignty of the Crown, as they did by boldly declaring their 
total separation from their former Sovereign. Unlike our 
neighbours, we have had no question of sovereignty to 
raise. We have been saved from all embarrassment on the 
subject of sovereignty, by simply recognising it as it already 
exists, in the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. There, 
for us, the sovereign powers of peace and war, life and 
death, receiving and sending ambassadors, still reside so 
long as Her Majesty and her descendants retain the alle- 
giance of the people of these Provinces. No doubt, some 
inconvenience may arise from the habitual personal absence 
of the Sovereign; but even this difficulty, now that the 
Atlantic is an eight-day ferry, is not insuperable. Next, 
we made the general, the supreme government, and the 
local derivative ; while the Americans did just the reverse. 

As to the merits and the consequences of this funda- 
mental difference, I must observe this, that merely to 
differ from another, and a sometime- established system, is, 
of course, no merit in itself; but yet, if we are to be a 
distinct people from our republican neighbours, we can only 
be so and remain so by the assertion of distinct principles 
of government — a far better boundary than the River St. 
Lawrence, or the Ashburton line. But suppose their 
fundamental politics to be right, would we then, for the 
sake of distinction, erect a falsehood at the North, to 
enable us to contend against a truth at the South? Would 
we establish monarchy merely out of a spirit of antagonism ? 
No ! gentlemen, God forbid ! I of course hold not only 
that our plan of government is politic in itself, but also 
that it is better than the American. I am prepared to 
maintain this at all times — against all comers : for if I had 
not myself faith in our work, I should scorn to inculcate its 






ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 131 

obligations on the public. We build, as I said the other 
day at Montreal, on the old foundations, though the result 
of our deliberations is popularly called " the new constitu- 
tion." I deny that the principles on which we proceeded 
are novel or untried principles. These principles all exist, 
and for ages have existed, in the British Constitution. Some 
of the contrivances and adaptations of principles are new ; 
but the Royal authority, Ministerial responsibility, a nomi- 
native Upper House, the full and free representation of the 
Commons, and the independence of the Judges, are not 
inventions of our making. We offer you no political patent 
medicine warranted to cure everything, nor do we pretend 
that our work is a perfect work ; but if we cannot make it 
perfect, we have at least left it capable of revision, by the 
concurrence of the parties to the present settlement, and the 
consent of the same supreme authority from which we seek 
the original sanction of our plan. Still it is to be hoped 
that the necessity for any revision will seldom occur, for I 
am quite sure the people of these Provinces will never wish 
to have it said of their constitution, what the French book- 
seller of the last century said so wittily, on being asked for 
the French Constitution, that he did not deal in periodical 
publications. We build on the old foundations, and I trust 
1 may say, in the spirit of the ancient founders, as well. 
The groundwork of the monarchical form of government is 
humility, self-denial, obedience, and holy fear. I know 
these are not nineteenth-century virtues, neither are they 
plants indigenous to the soil of the JNew World. Because 
it is a new world, as yet undisciplined, pride and self- 
assertion, and pretension, are more common than the great 
family of humble virtues whose names I have named. Pure 
democracy is very like pride — it is the " good-as-you " 
feeling carried into politics. Pure democracy asserts an 
unreal equality between youth and age, subject and magis- 
trate, the weak and the strong, the vicious and the virtuous. 
But the same virtues which feed and nourish filial affection 
and conjugal peace in private life, are essential to uphold 
civil authority; and these are the virtues on which the 
monarchical form of government alone can be maintained. 

K 2 



132 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

There was a time when such a doctrine as this, which I 
am now inculcating here, in Compton, could hardly get a 
patient hearing in any part of North America ; but that 
time is fortunately passed away : it is possible in our days, 
even for republican writers to admit the merits of the 
monarchical system, without being hooted into silence, as 
the elder Adams was when he published in Philadelphia, 
towards the end of the last century, his eloquent " Discourses 
on Davila." His grandson and editor, the present able 
Minister at the Court of St. James', tells us how the 
printer was intimidated from proceeding with the publica- 
tion, and that it was the great cause of his ancestor's life- 
long unpopularity ; and for what ? Because he maintained, 
with Burke and Washington, Bossuet and Shakespeare, the 
divine origin of society, as against the theory of its human 
origin, upheld by Jefferson, Paine, Eousseau, and John 
Locke. John Adams could be President of the United 
States, but he could not get a printer to publish a general 
treatise on government which admitted the merits of 
monarchy — which contended that there was "a natural 
aristocracy at Boston as well as at Madrid " — and the in- 
tolerant outcry then raised against him for the " Discourses 
of Davila" pursued him to the grave. Another American, 
of even higher mental mark than President Adams — per- 
haps the very first intellect of all the authors of tne 
American system — was on the same ground equally sus- 
pected and equally abused ; Alexander Hamilton, in his 
original plan of the American Constitution, offended in the 
same way as Adams by advocating " a solid and coercive 
union " with " complete sovereignty in Congress ; " and we 
all know how, down almost to yesterday, his memory was 
branded as that of an enemy of the country he did so much 
to bring into existence. No wonder political science has 
been almost at a standstill for fifty years on this continent, 
when no man, however high his position, dared raise a 
negative to the prevailing democratic theories without per- 
mission of the clamorous majority for the time being. At 
last, and almost simultaneously, the negative has been 
raised at the extremes of North America — Mexico, and 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 133 

Canada; and we, at least here, have no fear that our 
printers will be bullied into silence like the printer of 
President Adams. We have not conceived our system in a 
spirit of antagonism to our next neighbours ; we will still 
have enough in common with them constitutionally to 
obviate any very zealous propagandised on either part ; but 
we will also have enough left of our ancestral system to 
distinguish permanently our people from their people, our 
institutions from their institutions, and our history (when 
we shall have a history) from their history. 

I have referred, Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, to the 
assertion of somewhat similar principles to our own now 
being made in Mexico. It would be strange if Canada 
should reach, by deliberation and forethought, the same 
results which Mexico has grasped at out of the miserable 
depths of her long anarchy. We are not yet informed 
whether the new Emperor designs to consolidate his pro- 
vinces, or to leave them their local organisations ; but this 
I know, that with all the immense natural advantages of 
Mexico, I should, for my part, rather take my chance for 
the permanent establishment of a free monarchy in the 
North than in Mexico. We have already solved for our- 
selves one great problem — the legal relation of Church and 
State — which is still before the rulers of Mexico. If we 
have but half the population, we have three times the 
number of men of pure European race that Mexico has ; 
and while I own that I wish every success to the Mexican 
Empire, under the auspices of France, I have, I confess, 
still stronger hopes for the successful establishment of the 
free kingdom of Canada, under the auspices of Great 
Britain. 

" For bright, and fierce, and fickle is the South ; 
But dark, and true, and tender is the North." 

We have also solved, so far as the late Conferences could 
do so for these Provinces, the relation of the Crown to the 
people, the powers of the prerogative, and the sphere of the 
suffrage. We have preserved every British principle now 
in use among us, and we have recovered one or tw#«that 



134 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

were well-nigh lost ; we have been especially careful not to 
trench on the prerogative of the Crown, as to the rights, 
or rank, or income of its future representative on this con- 
tinent ; as to the dignity of the office, or the style and title 
of the future kingdom or viceroyalty, or by whatever other 
name it may be Her Majesty's pleasure to designate here- 
after her dominions on this continent. Next to the United 
States, we have the most extended suffrage in the world ; 
some think quite too far extended; but in our state of 
society, I do not see how that is to be avoided, in the 
selection at least, of the tax-imposing House of Parliament. 
We have, besides, restored to the Crown one of its essential 
attributes when, as the fountain of honour, we leave to the 
Sovereign the confirmation of the second and Conservative 
Chamber ; and we preserve for the Crown its other great 
attribute, as the fountain of justice, by retaining its right 
to appoint the Judges, of course upon the advice of the Con- 
stitutional Councillors of the Queen in this country, who 
are in turn responsible to Parliament and the people for 
their advice and appointments. We have provided also, in 
our new arrangements, that the tenure of all offices shall be 
good behaviour, in contradistinction to the " spoils prin- 
ciple " of our next neighbours. In all these respects we 
have built on the old foundations, in the spirit of the old 
wisdom, and we have faith, therefore, that our work will 
stand. 

Naturally, gentlemen, we cannot expect that our course 
will be all plain sailing. We must have our difficulties, as 
all states, new and old, have had ; and this brings me to 
refer to the apprehensions excited as to the local legisla- 
tures. The difference of language between the majority of 
Lower Canada, and the majority of the whole union is a 
difficulty ; but it is a difficulty which almost every other 
nation has had and has solved : in Belgium they have at 
least two languages, in Switzerland they have three chief 
languages — German, French, and Italian; the Federal 
form of Government, the compromise between great states 
and small, seems peculiarly adapted to conciliate difficulties 
of this description, and to keep politically together men of 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 135 

different origins and languages. I confess I have less 
anxiety on this score than I have on another — the proper 
protection of the minorities, as to religion in Upper and 
Lower Canada respectively. On this point there is no 
doubt a good deal of natural anxiety felt in these Townships, 
as there is among my own constituents in Montreal, and I 
dare say you would like me to enlarge upon it as the point 
most immediately interesting to yourselves. 

I am, as you are, interested in the due protection of the 
rights of the minority, not only as an English-speaking 
member in Lower Canada, but as interested naturally and 
reasonably for my co-religionists, who form a minority in 
Upper Canada. I am persuaded as regards both minori- 
ties, that they can have abundant guarantees — sacred beyond 
the reach of sectarian or sectional domination — for all their 
rights, civil and religious. If we had failed to secure 
every possible constitutional guarantee for our minorities, 
east and west, I am sure the gentleman who may be con- 
sidered your special representative at the Conference — 
(Hon. Mr. Gait) — and I am equally sure that I myself 
could have been no party to the conclusions of the late 
Conference. But we both believed — and all our Canadian 
colleagues went with us in this belief — that in securing the 
power of disallowance, under circumstances which might 
warrant it, to the General Government, in giving the 
appointment of Judges and Local Governors to the General 
Government, and in expressly providing in the Constitu- 
tion for the educational rights of the minority, we had 
taken every possible guarantee, legislative, judicial, and 
educational against the oppression of a sectional minority 
by a sectional majority. You will have for your guarantee 
the Queen's name, — which I think the case of Ottawa has 
shown is not without power in Canada ; you will have the 
subordination of the local to the general authority, pro- 
vided in the constitutional charter itself, and you will have, 
besides, the great material guarantee, that in the General 
Government you will be two-thirds of the whole told by 
language, and a clear majority counted by creed; and if 
with these odds you cannot protect your own interests, it 



136 BEITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

will be the first time you ever failed to do so. The 
Protestant minority in Lower Canada and the Catholic 
minority in Upper Canada may depend upon it the General 
Government will never see them oppressed — even if there 
were any disposition to oppress them — which I hope there 
is not in Upper Canada ; which I am quite sure there is 
not in Lower Canada. No General Government could 
stand for a single session under the new arrangements 
without Catholic as well as Protestant support; in fact, 
one great good to be expected from the larger interests 
with which that Government will have to deal will be, that 
local prejudices, and all other prejudices, will fall more and 
more into contempt, while our statesmen will rise more and 
more superior to such low and pitiful politics. What 
would be the effect of any set of men. in any subdivision 
of the Union, attempting, for example, the religious 
ascendency of any race or creed ? Why the direct effect 
would be to condemn themselves and their principles to 
insignificance in the General Government. Neither you 
here, nor the Catholic minority in Upper Canada, will owe 
your local rights and liberties to the forbearance or good- 
will of the neighbouring majority; neither of you will 
tolerate being tolerated ; but all your special institutions, 
religious and educational, as well as all your general and 
common franchises and rights, will be secured under the 
broad seal of the Empire, which the strong arm of the 
General Government will suffer no bigot to break, and no 
province to lay its finger on, should any one be foolish 
enough to attempt it. 

This is the frame of government we have to offer you, 
and to this system, when fully understood, I am certain 
you will give a cheerful and hearty adherence. We offer 
the good people of these colonies a system of government 
which will secure to them ample means of preserving 
external and internal peace ; we offer to them the common 
profits of a trade, which was represented in 1863, by 
imports and exports, to the gross value of 137,000,000 
of dollars, and by a sea-going and lake tonnage of 
12,000,000 of tons! We offer to each other special 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 137 

advantages in detail. The Maritime Provinces give us a 
right of way and free outports for five months out of every 
year ; we give them what they need, direct connection with 
the great producing regions of the ^North-west all the year 
round. This connection, if they do not get through Canada, 
they must ultimately get through the United States; and 
one reason why I, in season, and perhaps, out of season, 
have continued an advocate for an Intercolonial Railway 
was, that the first and closest and most lasting connection 
of those Lower Provinces, with the continental trade system, 
might be established by, and through, and in union with, 
Canada. I do not pretend that mere railway connection 
will make trade between us and them, but I am quite sure 
we can have no considerable intercourse, no exchanges or 
accounts pro or con without such a connection both for 
postal and travelling purposes. I rejoice, moreover, that 
we, men of insular origin, are likely to recover by this means 
one of our lost senses — the sense that comprehends the sea 
— that we are not now about to subside into a character so 
foreign to all our antecedents, that of a mere inland people. 
The Union of the Provinces restores us to the ocean, takes 
us back to the Atlantic, and launches us once more on the 
modern Mediterranean, the true central sea of the western 
world. But it is not only for its material advantages, by 
which we may enrich each other, nor its joint political 
action, by which we may protect each other, that the Union 
is to be desired ; it is because it will give, as it only can 
give, a distinct historical existence to British America. If 
it should be fortunately safely established and wisely upheld, 
mankind will find here, standing side by side, on this half- 
cleared continent, the British and American forms of free 
government ; here we shall have the means of comparison 
and contrast in the greatest affairs ; here we shall have 
principles tested in their results, and maxims inspected and 
systems gauged, and schools of thought, as well as rules of 
state, reformed and revised, founded and refounded. All 
that wholesome stimulus of variety which was wanting to 
the intellect of Rome under the first emperors will be 
abundantly supplied out of our own circumstances and 



138 BKITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

those of our neighbours, so that no Cicero need ever, from 
personal considerations, enter into indefensible incon- 
sistencies, and no Tacitus be forced to disguise his virtuous 
indignation at public corruption, under the thin veil of an 
outlandish allegory. I may be sanguine for the future of 
this country, — but if it be an error of judgment to expect 
great things of young countries, as of young people who 
are richly endowed by nature, and generously nurtured, 
then it is an error I never hope to amend. And here let 
me say, that it is for the young men of all the Provinces we 
who labour to bring about the Confederation are especially 
working ; it is to give them a country wide enough and 
diversified enough to content them all, that we labour ; it 
is to erect a standard worthy to engage their affections and 
ambition ; it is to frame a system which shall blend the 
best principles with the best manners, which shall infuse 
the spirit of honour into the pursuit of politics, that we 
have striven — and who can be more interested for our 
success than the young men of these Provinces, who are to 
carry on the country into another century ? 

"We in our time hope to do our duty; not only in 
" lengthening the cords and strengthening the stakes " of 
our constitutional system, with a view to that future, but 
in guarding jealously, in the perilous present, the honour 
and integrity of this province. I may say to you here, on 
the Eastern frontier, that the Government of the day are 
fully informed of all the machinations that have been set 
on foot, within and without our borders, to drive, or tempt, 
or trick Canada, out of that straightforward neutrality 
commanded by the Queen's Proclamation four years ago. 
So far, we have been enabled to maintain that neutrality 
in the letter, as well as in the spirit, and I trust we may be 
equally successful in doing so, so long as it may be required 
of us. I am well convinced there is no Canadian who 
would wish his Government to make any base compliance 
— to overdo or overstrain any legal obligation — in order to 
buy for us the inestimable boon of peace ; but I am equally 
convinced, and you will agree with me I feel confident, 
that all that can be done by way of prevention, however 






ADDKESSES ON VAKIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 139 

onerous or costly it may be to us as a province, ought to 
be done to maintain friendly relations with our neighbours, 
so far as they will enable us to do so. The rest depends 
on them, — on the fairness of their statesmen and the dis- 
cretion of their military authorities ; but come what may 
in the future, at all events we must see that Canada does 
its duty, and its whole duty, cheerfully, fully, and fear- 
lessly. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I beg your forgiveness 
for the great length to which these remarks have detained 
you. But our general plan having already found its way 
to the public, I was anxious to show our countrymen, here 
and at home, in a plain, popular way, the processes of 
reasoning and the guiding principles by which we arrived 
at the results at which we have arrived. I should blush 
for myself, and grieve for my colleagues, if we were any of 
us capable of picking up our principles in a panic, without 
inquiry or reflection, or examination. I need hardly assure 
you, gentlemen, that nothing was done or said at Quebec 
or Charlottetown without full deliberation, and very hard 
work. It would be invidious to name names in connection 
with what was regarded by all engaged as a confidential 
discussion ; but while I cheerfully recognise in our country- 
men of the Lower Provinces the noble qualities they 
exhibited throughout the whole of these transactions, I 
must say, I was proud of Canada's part in them also. I 
was proud of the self-control, the ability, the acquirements, 
and the disinterested unanimity of our colleagues, from 
Upper as well as from Lower Canada. And now, gentle- 
men, that the architects have completed their plan, it is for 
you to say shall the building be put up ? It is for you, 
and for your representatives in Parliament, — for my friend 
Mr. Pope and the other township members, — for the people 
of the Maritime Provinces and their representatives to say, 
whether this, great work is to be carried, with all due 
diligence, to its completion. If the design should seem to 
you as wise and fit as it seems to us, then fling all mis- 
givings far behind you and go ahead ! Let no local 
prejudice impede, let no personal ambition obstruct, the 



140 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

great work. "Why ! the very Aborigines of the land might 
have instructed the sceptics among ourselves that union was 
strength. What was it gave at one time the balance of 
power on this soil to the Six Nations, — so that England, 
Prance, and Holland all sought the alliance of the red- 
skinned statesmen of Onondago ? What was it made the 
names of Brant, and Pontiac, and Tecumseth so for- 
midable in their day ? Because they too had conceived the 
idea — an immense stride for the savage intellect to make 
— that union was strength. Let the personalities and 
partisanship of our times stand abashed in the presence of 
those forest-born Federalists, who rose superior to all mere 
tribal prejudices in endeavouring to save a whole people. 
And now, my friends of the County of Compton, once more 
receive my grateful thanks ; have no fears for the rights of 
the minority, but be watchful as you ought to be, and as I 
am sure your worthy member (who is always at his post 
when your interests are at stake) will be. The Parliament 
of Canada is, as you are aware, called by His Excellency 
for despatch of business at Quebec, on the 1 9th of January • 
it is an early call ; and I am sure you all feel it will be an 
important session. I am, I do assure you, persuaded in 
my inmost mind, that these are the days of destiny for 
British America; that our opportunity to determine our 
own future, under the favour of Divine Providence, is upon 
us ; that there is a tide in the affairs of nations, as well as 
of men, and that we are now at the flood of that tide. 
Whether the men who have this great duty in charge will 
be found equal to the task, remains to be proved by their 
votes ; but for my part, I am hopeful for the early and 
mutually advantageous union of all the Provinces ; for the 
early and firm establishment of our monarchical Confedera- 
tion on this continent. 






THE IRISH IN CANADA ; THE IMPORTATION 
OF FENIANISM. 

An Address delivered before the St. Patrick's Society, at City 
Concert Hall, Montreal, January 11th, 1865. 

Mr. McGee said : Ladies and Gentlemen, I deserve no 
credit for coming here to-night from Quebec, at some per- 
sonal inconvenience, as my friend, the President, has said, 
for this is the annual meeting of the St. Patrick's Society, 
in aid of its charitable fund : this is our yearly offering to 
the poor of our own origin — an offering made in the middle 
of winter, when all the glowing zeal of charity is called for 
to kindle the hearthstones of those who have, perhaps, at 
this hour neither food nor fuel, nor any other friends but 
ourselves. We are here in the best room in the city — 
brilliant with lights and fair faces and fine dresses ; but we 
are here to remember those who are debarred by bitter 
poverty from entering these happy walls, from witnessing 
these pleasant scenes, for whom we have to think and act, 
and, so far as we can, for whom we have also to make pro- 
vision suited to this trying season. If it were at all within 
the possibilities, I could not do otherwise than be here ; 
but I frankly own to you I had some additional reasons in 
desiring 'to be present this evening. This society has 
been always very kind to me, as, indeed, I think I may say 
every society among us has been in its turn. Now, I, on 
my part, am ready to do my pet-it possible for them all ; I 
endeavour not to abuse their confidence, and I ask but one 
recompense — the privilege of unrestricted freedom of speech, 
within the bounds of modesty and discretion. There are 
one or two subjects on which I desire to exercise that privi- 
lege, without which my presence here would be worse than 



142 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

useless both to you and to me ; and the first of them is, to 
say a few words, which I may have no other opportunity of 
saying, on behalf of an admirable object, for which a 
reverend gentleman from Ireland is at present canvassing 
the city — I allude to the Rev. Mr. Beausang, of the 
Catholic University of Ireland. Being so long out of old 
Ireland, fully conscious of the changes that have taken 
place in myself and in the circle of my own friends during 
sixteen years, I always speak with great diffidence when I 
venture to give any public expression to opinions on Irish 
topics of the day. Moreover, gentlemen, as you may have 
observed, I do not belong to the Jefferson Brick school of 
politicians (Jefferson, you may remember, was of opinion 
that his leading articles in the " Rowdy Journal " made the 
Czar shake in his shoes at St. Petersburg). I have rather 
avoided than sought to parade in public the often-abused 
name of our glorious " old country." I have avoided 
doing so, because I feel no stirrings of national gratification 
in presenting my native land in the character of an habitual 
victim, or a perpetual plaintiff; or an unsatisfied petitioner 
for the cold world's pity. I dislike as much as Moore did 
that she should 

" Yearly kneel before our masters' doors ! 
And hawk her wrongs as beggars do their sores ! " 

I consider it the part of true patriotism not to jeopardise the 
position of the Irish in these British Provinces — half a million 
strong or thereabouts — by idle or irritating retrospective con- 
troversies ; by fighting over again the battle of the Boyne ; 
or disputing about the merits of the illustrious Prince, who 
was the victor, and the unfortunate King, who was the van- 
quished in that eventful contest. The Irish mind has 
been fed too much on stimulants and too little on solids : 
and this, among other reasons, is one of my strongest 
motives for desiring the secure establishment of an Univer- 
sity of their own, springing from amongst and congenial to 
the spirit of the Irish Catholics still in Ireland. On this 
view, I may say I hope without presumption, that I saw 
with very great regret, but still greater surprise, Lord 



/.. 



ADDKESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 143 

Palmerston's refusal to grant a Parliamentary charter to 
that University. There are at present two Universities 
recognised by law in Ireland — Trinity College, and what 
are popularly known as "The Godless Colleges." I have 
every disposition and every right to speak with respect of 
Trinity College, although it is, and always has been, exclu- 
sively Anglican in all its statutes, tests, and honours. No 
Irishman can forget that it was the Alma Mater of almost 
all our most famous public men, of Anglo-Irish stock, from 
its first and greatest scholar, James Usher, to its last and 
not least ornament, Isaac Butt. ]N T o Catholic Irishman will 
consent to part with the reputation of William Conyngham 
Plunkett, of T.C.D., because he was the son of a dissenting 
minister, and educated at the cost of the congregation ; or 
with our beloved Goldsmith, because he was the son and 
brother of a parson, nor with Jonathan Swift, because he 
was a parson himself. Long — I say in all sincerity — long 
may old Trinity flourish and be found famous ; however 
tenaciously she may cling to her Elizabethan statutes, tests, 
and distinctions. None of us, men of the Emancipation 
era, should ever forget that her present venerable Provost, 
Dr. Macdonnell (father of the present Lieut.-Governor of 
Nova Scotia, and uncle of my friend Dr. Macdonnell, of 
this city), was one of the first signers, iu 1828, of the 
Dublin Protestant petition on behalf of Catholic emancipa- 
tion ; nor, to descend from bold deeds, as that was in those 
days, to gentle courtesies, none of us, I trust, have for- 
gotten the marked attentions paid to Cardinal Wiseman by 
that thorough scholar and thorough Irishman, Dr. Todd, 
when some years ago the learned Cardinal visited the 
College. Irish zealots on all sides, there and then, were 
quietly rebuked, when the scholarship of Trinity rendered 
its due but dignified recognition to the acquirements and 
genius of a prince of scholars and a prince of the Roman 
Church. Put while w r e can and do respect Old Trinity, 
with all its dogmas and distinctions, we look — I hope every 
right-minded Irishman, Protestant or Catholic, looks with 
distrust amounting to hostility on all godless colleges. 
Never once for her thirteen hundred years of Christian 



144 BKITISH- AMEBIC AN UNION. 

annals have religion and science been considered irrecon- 
cileable in Ireland — never have they been other than help- 
mates to each other — never has the decree of their utter 
divorce been pronounced until our own days, and never, I 
trust, either now or hereafter, can that unnatural divorce 
be carried into effect. Speaking as a layman — as a poli- 
tician, if you choose — I repeat, with all deference, that it 
seems to me a most calamitous mistake for the Imperial 
authorities to make war upon the laudable ambition of the 
Irish mind, to found for Catholics a Catholic University, 
and to have its status fixed by legislative enactment. But 
I will not dwell upon this subject farther than to commend 
to my countrymen and co-religionists who are here the 
cause which brings the present delegate of that University, 
the Rev. Mr. Beausang, among us. There is another sub- 
ject which more immediately concerns ourselves, in Mon- 
treal and in Canada, which has lately occupied a good deal 
of the attention of the press — I allude to the alleged spread 
of a seditious Irish society, originating at New York, whose 
founders have chosen to go behind the long Christian 
record of their ancestors, to find in days of Pagan darkness 
and blindness an appropriate name for themselves. A 
statement having been made the other day in the Toronto 
Globe, on the authority of its Montreal Correspondent, that 
there were 1500 of these contemporary pagans in Montreal 
— a statement made I am sure without intentional malice 
on the Correspondent's part — I felt, bound, as I suppose 
you may have seen, to deny absolutely that statement. The 
denial was not given in my own words, but the alleged fact 
was denied, and that was the main point. I now, in your 
presence, repeat that denial on behalf of the Irish Catholics 
of this city; I say there could not be 15 such scamps asso- 
ciated and meeting together, not to say 1500, without your 
knowledge and mine ; and I repeat absolutely that there is 
no such body amongst us, and that the contrary statements 
are deplorably untrue and unjust, and impolitic as well 
as unjust. I regret that papers of great circulation 
should lend themselves to the propagation of such 
statements, which have a direct tendency to foster 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 145 

and enhance the very evil they intend to combat. 
See what the result has been in some parts of Upper 
Canada. Any two or more nervous or mischievous magis- 
trates — and with 11,000 men in the commission of the 
peace there must be some of both these sorts — any two or 
more of these may subject a neighbourhood to all the 
rigours of martial law. Already indecent and unauthorised 
searches have been made for concealed arms in Catholic 
churches ; already, as in some of the towns of Bruce, the 
magistrates are very improperly, in my opinion, arming one 
class of the people against the other. What consequences 
of evil may flow from this step, should make any respon- 
sible man shudder. And what is it all owing to ? Why, 
to these often invented, and always exaggerated, newspaper 
reports. Observe the absurd figure Upper Canada is made 
to cut in all this business — the Protestant million are made 
to tremble before a fraction of a fraction : for if there are 
Fenians in that quarter of the world, I venture to say 
they are as wholly insignificant in numbers as in every 
other respect. At the risk, however, of sharing the fate of 
all unasked advisers, I would say to the Catholics of Upper 
Canada, in each locality, if there is any, the least proof that 
this foreign disease has seized on any, the least among you, 
establish at once, for your own sakes — for the country's 
sake — a cordon sanitaire around your people ; establish a 
Committee which will purge your ranks of this political 
leprosy ; weed out and cast off those rotten members who, 
without a single governmental grievance to complain of in 
Canada, would yet weaken and divide us in these days of 
danger and anxiety. Instead of sympathy for the punish- 
ment they are drawing upon themselves, there ought to be 
general indignation at the perils such wretches would, if 
permitted to exist among us, draw upon the whole commu- 
nity, socially, politically, and religiously. How would any 
Catholic who hears me like to see the parish church a 
stable, and St. Patrick's a barrack ? How would our 
working men like to see our docks desolate, our canals 
closed, our 1100 new buildings arrested, ruin in our streets, 
and famine shivering among the ruins ? And this is what 

L 



146 BRITISH- AMEBIC AN UNION. 

these wretched conspirators, if they had the power, would 
bring to pass as surely as fire produces ashes from wood, or 
cold produces ice from water. I repeat here, deliberately, 
that I do not believe in the existence of any such organisa- 
tion in Lower Canada — certainly not in Montreal ; but that 
there are or have been emissaries from the United States 
among us, for the purpose of establishing it, has been so 
often and so confidently stated, that what I have said on 
the general subject will, I hope, not be considered untimely 
or uncalled for. By the law of Lower Canada the adminis- 
tration of an oath of membership in any secret, seditious 
society is a penitentiary offence, punishable by twenty 
years' imprisonment; and the taking of such an oath is 
punishable by seven years' imprisonment. By the law of 
the Church, membership in any such society, if persevered 
in, entails, ipso facto, the penalty of excommunication. I 
will just refer to an excellent recent work, the Lectures on 
Modem History, by Professor Eobertson, of the Catholic 
University of Ireland, where the chief decrees on this sub- 
ject, collated by Professor Murray, of Maynooth College, 
show that Pope Clement XII., Pope Benedict XIV., Pope 
Leo XL, Pope Pius VII., and the present Pope Pius IX., 
have all strongly condemned these societies. (Mr. McGee 
here cited the titles- of the several decrees by which this 
description of societies had been condemned.) By all those 
solemn Acts of ecclesiastical legislation, secret seditious 
societies are expressly and in the most emphatic terms con- 
demned ; and as we, in this Society, are all Catholics, I 
feel that I am justified in strengthening my own position 
by a circumstantial reference to those august authorities. 
Causa Jinita est ! 

Mr. President, — I 'have been led to speak at greater 
length than is usual with me on these occasions, because I 
may not again for some months have an opportunity of 
meeting you all, face to face. We, the Irish inhabitants of 
Montreal, are doing very well as we are. We are, young 
and old, some 30,000 ; our mechanics compare favourably 
with those of any other origin ; our young professional 
men are putting forth the promise of great talents ; our 



ADDRESSES ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 147 

civil arid religious rights are respected by all our feliow- 
citizens, whose equal rights we, in turn, equally respect. 
I dare assert — and I speak from some degree of knowledge — 
that there is not, take them for all in all, a more respect- 
able community of Irishmen and their descendants to be 
found anywhere throughout the New World. I say this 
with pride — for it is a proud thing to be able to say. 
When I contemplate this community, rejoicing, as I well 
may, in their joy, and sharing in their trials, — when I con- 
template their peaceful, steady, onward career, exacting 
respect and confidence on all sides, I cannot but feel keenly 
that any newspaper, here or elsewhere, should attempt to 
asperse them as a band of conspirators, or that any one 
should dare associate them, as a body, with lawless and 
anti-social designs. Mr. President, any good cause you 
know, and I trust every one who knows me knows, 
can at any time command my slender services ; but you 
will continue to grant me, as I am sure our fellow-citi- 
zens at large will grant me, the cherished right of unre- 
stricted free speech whenever I am called out to address 
either a special society or the general body of the citizens 
of Montreal. I have exercised that right to the full 
to-night ; forgive me if I have gone beyond my limits : it 
was my zeal for your welfare, believe me, that prompted 
what I have mentioned to you. But this I think I may 
say, that wherever the flag above us is at stake — wherever 
our community is in question — we will be found by word 
and deed to shed the last of our Irish blood in defence 
of the inestimable liberties we enjoy, in common with all 
classes of Her Majesty's Canadian subjects. 



l 2 



PAET II. 

SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 



"THE DOUBLE MAJOEITY."* 

House op Assembly, Toronto, April 28th, 1859. 

Mr. McGee said that last year the hon. member for 
Cornwall moved a resolution almost identical with that 
now before the House, and that he (Mr. McGee) had felt 
it his duty to support it. If there had been in this session 
of Parliament, from the beginning of it till the present 
time, a valuable moment for those who professed to enter- 
tain moderate views, and to be possessed of influence in 
the country to make those known, and that influence felt 
throughout the length and breadth of the land, it was, he 
contended, in the very debate in which they were then 
engaged. In all probability that was the last debate which 
would ever take place in a United Legislature sitting in 
the chief city of Upper Canada. He presumed that the 
Government intended to go for four years to Quebec, and 
then to remove to Ottawa, there permanently to reside — 
which, though situated in Upper Canada, could not be said 
to be so peculiarly Upper Canadian as the city of Toronto. 
Therefore it was that he had said that this would be the 
last important debate in a United Legislature sitting in 

* This was a constitutional expedient, by which it was proposed, that as 
Upper and Lower Canada had an equal number of members, under the 
Union Act, no legislation ' ' should be forced upon either, without the con- 
sent of its own majority." It subsequently failed iu practice. 



150 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

Upper Canada. They were first of all to go to Quebec for 
four years; but where, he would ask, was the guarantee 
that the Union would last four years in the present con- 
dition of the Province ? When they heard leading repre- 
sentatives of the people who occupied seats in that House, 
instituted under and by virtue of the Union, give utterance 
to disunion sentiments ; when they heard such sentiments 
loudly proclaimed from one side of the House, and echoed 
tauntingly back from the other, and when they heard 
gentlemen declare "well, let a severance of the Union 
come — we are prepared for it," these, he asserted, were 
strong symptoms and unmistakeable indications of what 
the feeling of both sections of the Province was on that 
point. If the Government believed the Union workable, 
or that it could be made workable, it was their most solemn 
duty to have rebuked such sentiments. But their very 
silence showed that their belief was that the present Union 
was not workable ; that its dissolution was a mere matter 
of time; that it was on its last legs, and that it was either 
unworthy of being defended or incapable of any defence 
at all. Where could it have been with more propriety 
defended than in the chief city in Upper Canada, and in 
the course of a debate in which sentiments diametrically 
opposed to Union had been uttered? He had no doubt 
in his own mind that they would find the difficulties which 
had distracted the Legislature during this session, as well 
as the last, would assume a greater degree of gravity in 
Quebec. And why ? The hon. member for Montmorency 
had talked eloquently and well upon the necessity of com- 
promise, and no man recognised the importance of that 
doctrine more than he (Mr. McGee) did, for the spirit of 
compromise was the spirit of harmony; but where was it 
desirable that that compromise should be made ? He (Mr. 
McGee) would answer, on that very spot, in the chief city 
in Upper Canada, and in the presence of the people of 
Upper Canada. If the hon. gentleman was as bold a 
statesman as he was an advocate in that House, that was 
the place to settle the difficulties arising between both 
sections. Could it be reasonably expected that hon. mem- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAME^. 151 

bers from Upper Canada, in the presence of a strange race 
and away from their own soil, would yield so readily to 
arguments and proposals of compromise ? No. If the 
present Union was at all defensible — if it could be upheld — 
this was the time, this was the occasion, to prove it. He 
(Mr. McGee) had lost no opportunity of making himself 
acquainted with the feelings of the people throughout the 
country, and he was convinced that he did not exaggerate 
when he said that there existed such a spirit of disunion in 
the upper section of the Province ; and he would add, on 
the authority of members of French origin in Lower Canada 
too, that if this cry of disunion were raised it would be 
popular. Had the end of the Union then arrived ? If so, 
let it not be announced by the outcry of the passions of 
people, nor yet let it be heralded by passionate debates on 
the part of their representatives. Let those whose duty it 
is to steer the. ship of State direct it in the proper path, 
and if the evil must come let them find expedients to break 
the shock. It was said in common conversation that the 
Home Government would never permit a dissolution of the 
Union. They could only reason upon that point from 
analogy, and nothing, he contended, was more common in 
their colonial history than such an event. New Brunswick 
and Nova Scotia were formerly one province, and had been 
separated by the action of the Imperial Government. Cape 
Breton had been separated and re-annexed to Nova Scotia, 
as Labrador had been to Newfoundland. This Upper Pro- 
vince belonged originally to the province of Quebec— was 
separated from it in 1791, and re-united half a century 
later. Judging from the colonial policy which the mother 
country had ever pursued, there is nothing more certain 
than that, if a dissolution of the Union was strongly pressed 
for, it would not be refused. He spoke impartially. He 
had as deeply at heart, he had as great a reverence for, 
the religious institutions of Lower Canada as any Lower 
Canadian could have. And he had never sat by and heard 
them attacked without putting forward his decided protest 
against such utterances. In that respect he was certain he 
felt as strongly as anybody could do for the preservation of 



152 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

the social and religious institutions of Lower Canada,, and 
if they were attacked — and might that day be far distant — 
his duty would be to unite himself heartily with those who 
defended their hearths and their altars. On the other 
hand, he had a very deep, strong, and sincere feeling of 
interest in the people of Upper Canada. He belonged to 
them by birth ; he had a great deal in common with them ; 
one-third of them were emigrants like himself, and he 
could therefore speak impartially on the subject. In that 
spirit he would say that, badly as they got on under the 
present system, they would get on much worse if the Union 
were severed. The radical evil did not lie so much in the 
system as in that insatiable thirst for office which made 
every man believe himself a born statesman, and imagine 
that he should succeed to office after occupying a seat for 
twelve months in that House. Too many of them desired 
by illegitimate means to attain to wealth, to have a hand in 
a job, and surreptitiously to arrive at a position to the 
attainment of which men in other countries were willing to 
devote the best and the greater portion of well-spent lives. 
This spirit he regarded as dangerous — as the rock against 
which they would split if proper caution was not used. 
That was the spirit which would prove their ruin, and 
which would produce a dissolution of the Union. It would 
be doubly productive of evil in Quebec, as there the French 
Canadian influence would be stronger, and consequently 
the suspicions of the people of Upper Canada would be 
more aroused. 

Mr. Catjchon — That will strike in both ways. 

Mr. McGee — That is your view of sound policy. The 
hon. gentleman thinks Lower Canada has now the power 
and will keep it. 

Mr. Cauchon — I never said so. I hope you don't want 
to misrepresent me. What I said was that we ought not 
to make any concession to Upper Canada without being 
well aware of what we are doing. 

Mr. McGee said that such grave issues as those between 
the two sections of the Province ought not of course to be 
settled without mature deliberation. The hon. gentleman 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAKLIAMENT. 153 

then went on to say that he regarded the taunts the hon. 
member for Montmorency had uttered that night, and in 
which he was encouraged by hon. gentlemen opposite, re- 
specting the gentlemen who had been called upon to form 
the Administration of August last, as most unjust. To 
suppose it possible that great questions, some of which had 
been fructifying and fermenting since the Union, could be 
settled in forty-eight hours, was an absurdity. He would 
not have alluded to this matter, did it not incidentally 
show the existence of an unfriendly desire to place public 
men unfairly before the House and the country — in a 
position in which their influence must be endangered, 
instead of taking them as they were, and giving them an 
opportunity of being useful so long and as far as possible. 
Instead of being treated in such a spirit, they were attacked 
with harshness, severity, and unfairness. So long as such 
a spirit existed, it showed clearly that it was not desired 
that they should grow into one nation ; it showed that the 
theory — that Canada would be one nation — which existed 
in the mind of Lord Sydenham and his advisers, had been 
abandoned on both sides, and that no nearer approach 
could be made towards its fulfilment. On the contrary, he 
was one of those who desired that if the present system 
were displaced, it should be only to make way for a more 
complete and perfect union. As one who looked forward 
to the speedy growth of this great Province into an in- 
cipient nationality, which, in the fulness of time, and with 
the consent of the parent State, was to take its place among 
the nations of the New World; as one who did not believe 
that prospect to be all a dream ; as one who looked forward 
with confidence to that glorious consummation, he would 
say that it was now the solemn duty of the gentlemen who 
occupied the Treasury Benches to speak seriously one last 
parting word to Upper Canada on a question which most 
vitally concerned her; and, on the important occasion of 
bidding her adieu, show some reasonable grounds for 
adopting or rejecting the resolutions of the hon. member 
for Cornwall. 



CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN 
UPPER AND LOWER CANADA. 

House op Assembly, Quebec, May 2nd, 1860. 

Mr. Brown (Toronto) having moved a series of reso- 
lutions affirming the necessity of constitutional changes in 
the relations of Upper and Lower Canada, 

Mr. McGee said — I have no intention of detaining the 
House by speaking at any great length, and still less of 
following in anything like detail, the observations made last 
night by the member for North Hastings (Mr. Benjamin). 
I listened to the hon. gentleman's speech throughout, with 
a great deal of attention, but I failed to perceive any con- 
clusive argument in all that he said. The exposition he 
made to this House reminded me of Falstaff's "penny- 
worth of bread to such an unconscionable quantity of sack." 
(Laughter.) But, though I do not intend to follow in 
argument, as I must follow in point of time, the hon. 
member for North Hastings, if the House will allow me, 
I shall offer some views which I have formed for myself, 
from a careful perusal of the political records of this Pro- 
vince, as well as of the sister colonies of British North 
America, and after giving them all the attention I could, 
both during the recess and during former sessions, when I 
had the honour of attending this House, and had the use 
of its valuable library, the most valuable possession we 
have, I shall offer to the House with great deference the 
views which I considered it my duty to form in relation to 
this question, which differs most materially from any other 
question that can come before this House. On every 
other occasion, we are either debating a particular ex- 
penditure, or we are for or against a particular law, but in 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 155 

this discussion we have raised the long previous question, 
whether or not we ought to be here — whether it is true 
that, at this moment, this House and the co-ordinate 
branches of the Legislature, are governing this country, 
according to the prevailing theory in Canada of Responsible 
Government. We are debating the tenure of our own ex- 
istence, whether we have fulfilled the conditions of that 
tenure, and whether it is for the advantage of our con- 
stituents that that tenure should be prolonged. That is a 
question of much more serious scope than the propriety of 
any particular expenditure, which may take place under 
our form of Government, or any particular Act which we 
may either pass here or reject. I may observe, Mr. Speaker, 
before going farther, that this is not the first time, nor the 
second, nor the third, that the Constitution of Canada has 
been under discussion in Assemblies similar to our own. 
Sir Henry Cavendish's report of "The debates on the 
Quebec Bill" in the Imperial Parliament, in 1774, are 
familiar to most members of this House. That discussion 
occupied the Commons of Great Britain nine days, and 
engaged the earnest attention of the ablest statesmen of the 
first half of George the Third's reign; yet in 1774, there 
were, according to Sir Guy Carleton, not above 400 British 
settlers in all Canada, and not more than 90,000 inhabitants 
altogether, including, I suppose, tbe Aborigines. The first 
Constitution continued in force till 1791 — seventeen years; 
it was then abolished; two provinces were created; local 
legislatures, consisting of an executive head and two cham- 
bers each, were granted to Upper and Lower Canada. The 
discussion on the Canada Act of 1791 occupied the Com- 
mons of Great Britain six days, and were sustained by the 
first statesmen of that generation. That was the discussion 
which was chiefly dwelt upon, and most largely quoted 
from by the member for Toronto. It was a discussion 
very remarkable in every respect, because it coincided in 
point of time with the great debate on first principles, 
which at that day occupied the minds of all the statesmen in 
the civilised world. The great issues raised by the French 
Revolution were then novel to the minds of men, and even 



156 BKITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

the Canada Act of 1791 got entangled in the consideration 
of the general principles involved in the discussion of the 
issues raised by the French Revolution, and as the member 
for Hastings said last night, led to the rupture of a political 
and personal friendship of twenty-five years' standing, be- 
tween two of the most illustrious statesmen of Great 
Britain, Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox — a rupture, however, 
which did not grow, as he said, out of the merits of the 
Canada Bill, but from the introduction of French politics 
into the debate by Burke, as was charged by his former 
frier d Fox, — unjustly and unnecessarily. The constitution 
adopted in 1791 differed very materially from that adopted 
in 1774, and continued for twenty or thirty years, without 
encountering any formidable criticism or censure. It went 
into effect in Lower Canada at once, and in Upper Canada 
in 1796. It was called in those days the "New Constitu- 
tion," and had its eulogists and enthusiastic admirers. We 
have an anecdote in Christie's " History of Canada/' that 
when Prince Edward, father of her present Majesty, and 
grandfather of the young Prince, whom we expect soon to 
see amongst us, visited this colony, he quelled an election 
riot at Charlesbourg, in this neighbourhood (Quebec), by 
appealing to the merits of the " New Constitution," and 
the advantages Canadians had obtained under it. After a 
full and fair trial, however, the New Constitution was found 
not to work well. It was found that the colony had out- 
grown it. Time and experience, those great instructors of 
all statesmen, who are not wilfully blind or hopelessly in- 
capable, proved wiser than Lord North in 1774, than Mr. 
Pitt and his colleagues in 1791, exposed many gaps and 
vacant spaces in the once lauded constitution, and pointed 
out many occasions and many reasons for change, improve- 
ment, addition, and amendment. Dissatisfaction strongly 
manifested itself in Lower Canada about the year 1822. 
The relations of the Executive and Legislature were not 
defined. The relations of the Judiciary to the Executive 
and Legislature were not defined. The House of Assembly 
had spent the greater part of two sessions, 18 L8 and 1819, 
in impeaching the Chief Justice and three or four of the 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAKLIAMENT. 157 

other Judges. They claimed the power of impeachment, 
while the Upper Chamber asserted its competency to sit as 
a court of impeachment. This raised a great constitutional 
question, which was referred by Lord Dalhousie to the 
Priuce Begent's Government; but, though it was taken 
into consideration, no decision on the point has been given 
by the Home Government from that day to this. (Hear, 
hear.) In 1822, this section of the Province, then by far 
the most populous, was before the House of Commons as a 
petitioner for constitutional changes. It was at that time 
gradually becoming accustomed to Constitutional Govern- 
ment, which at first, of course, it was not. Por it is a 
curious fact — a fact, perhaps, the dregs of which are not yet 
entirely worked out of the social state of Lower Canada, — 
that the majority of Lower Canadians did not themselves 
in the first place wish for Constitutional Government, 
having been trained under the military system of Montcalm 
and his predecessors, to a preference for submission to 
military power. When the Constitution of 1774 was pro- 
posed, the Prench population of Lower Canada petitioned 
almost to a man against it, and declared they did not wish 
to be inflicted with an Assembly. They pointed out how 
Assemblies in other colonies had led to conflict between 
the colonists and the Crown, and also to their lavish ex- 
penditure of public money. But after a few years were 
past, when the generation which saw the substitution of 
the flag of Great Britain for the flag of Prance had passed 
away, and when a generation familiarised with constitutional 
practices grew up, the public men, of the legal profession 
especially, and some of the medical profession, and some of 
the seignors of the country, began to warm towards a con- 
stitutional system, and the ambition which had formerly 
been directed to the career of arms, transferred its hopes to 
the legislature, so that it became a source of triumph and 
pride to have a seat in either the Upper or Lower branch 
of the governing body of the country. But, as that con- 
stitutional feeling grew strong, so also grew strong the 
dissatisfaction of the people with the defective system 
introduced in 1791. Accordingly, in 1822, the Commons 



158 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

of Lower Canada appeared as petitioners at the bar of 
the House of Commons, in England; the same year Mr. 
Maryatt, M.P., was appointed their agent in the Imperial 
Parliament; and in 1823 Mr. Speaker Papineau was sent 
to London to obtain a redress of grievances. In 1828 
Mr. Huskisson's " Canada Committee " sat, and they, in 
their report, conclude that no changes short of "an im- 
partial, conciliatory, and constitutional system," will be 
attended with the desired effect — the pacification of the 
Province at large. In 1832, Mr. Wm. Lyon Mackenzie 
carried to London a petition signed by 24,000 inhabitants 
of Upper Canada, against the scheme of union then in 
preparation; in 1834, the ninety-two resolutions of Lower 
Canada, and the report of the " Committee on Grievances " 
in Upper Canada, sufficiently proved that the system would 
not work; yet it was not until the unsuccessful insurrection 
of 1837 and '88 challenged the attention of Imperial 
statesmen to the necessity for " Constitutional Remedies," 
that they entered in good earnest on their consideration. 
The measure proposed in 1839 was, however, postponed 
till the next year, when Canadian affairs occupied the 
House of Commons six or eight days; the result was, the 
the present Act of Union, now in its twentieth year, and 
which we, on this side, propose to subject to the same 
test of experience — of fitness to our present circumstances 
— which the statesmen of 1840 employed towards the 
Constitution of 1791, and the statesmen of 1791 applied 
to the Constitution of 1774. (Hear, hear.) A century 
has not passed since the Treaty of Paris handed over 
this country to Great Britain ; yet, in that century, it has 
existed under five different forms of Government. Por 
fourteen years it was governed by a military executive; 
for seventeen years it was ruled as a Crown Colony, by a 
Governor and Council ; for forty years and upwards it was 
ruled as two distinct Provinces, with one chamber filled by 
election and one by nomination, in each section; and at 
this moment it is governed by a single Legislature, but 
with both branches elective since 1854, and the Executive 
Ministers, in theory at least, responsible for their official 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 159 

acts to the people and Parliament of Canada only. The 
debates of 1774, of 1791, and of 1840, show, Mr. Speaker, 
how deeply the best minds in the Empire were exercised in 
planning the fabric, and proportioning the parts of the 
several systems under which this Province has been 
governed for the last hundred years. In reading over 
those debates, we are overawed at the fulness of informa- 
tion, at the generous forecast, the enlightened wisdom of 
many of the men who have gone before us, in considering 
the constitution of Canada ; but we are no less struck, Mr. 
Speaker, by the fact, that all their plans have been materi- 
ally modified and amended by time. Time and experience 
have proved wiser counsellors than the wisest of men; 
time and experience have condemned Lord North's attempt, 
and every other attempt, to establish the Church of England 
in any portion of Canada, as the State Church ; time and 
experience have condemned Mr. Pitt's attempt to make 
seats in the Legislative Council hereditary ; and to these 
same high authorities — time and experience — we now 
appeal against the defects, the radical defects in Lord John 
Russell's constitution of 1840. What were the circum- 
stances which surrounded the introduction of that constitu- 
tion into Canada? Both Upper and Lower Canada had 
been agitated to their depths by the unsuccessful insurrec- 
tion of 1837 and 1838. The swell and clamour of the 
storm had not disappeared, when the high commanding 
voice of Lord Durham was heard above all other voices, 
propounding remedies — immediate and permanent remedies 
—for the state of the Province. The report of that noble 
Lord completes the evidence of the Imperial care of 
Canada exhibited in the discussions of 1791 and 1774. 
It is, as I am sure every one in this House will admit, a 
document above all praise, above all price; it is such a 
report as Timoleon might have made to the Corinthian 
Senate, when sent to deliver their descendants, the Syra- 
cusans, from the double-headed monster, despotism and 
anarchy. Lord John Russell was, naturally enough, deeply 
imbued with the sentiments of Lord Durham ; he became 
Colonial Secretary in the Melbourne ministry of 1839, 



160 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

greatly to the satisfaction of his friend, Lord Sydenham, 
who accepted at the same time the office of Governor- 
General of the British North American Colonies. It was 
agreed between the Melbourne ministry and Lord Sydenham 
— before he could have any other knowledge of the actual 
state of Upper and Lower Canada, than that gleaned from 
Lord Durham's report and Lord Durham's conversation — 
that the Legislative Union was to be carried. It was 
decided upon as a necessary measure, from an Imperial 
point of view, in order to prevent the recurrence of the 
events of 1837 and 1838, and in order to strengthen 
the connection with Great Britain. I do not pretend to 
say that all considerations local to Canada were underrated 
or omitted from the deliberations of the Melbourne Admi- 
nistration — I do not even say that the Imperial view they 
took was not the view which even the most patriotic 
Canadian — reasoning now long after the fact — might not 
have taken could he have foreseen its actual consequences ; 
but I do say, that the measure of Union passed in 1840 
was conceived in an Imperial spirit, that it was urged on 
by Imperial, rather than Provincial motives and interests, 
and that advantage was taken of the temporary agitation 
and reaction, in this country, to force it, all imperfect as it 
was, into premature operation. (Hear, hear.) Honourable 
gentlemen, its defenders and eulogists in this House, may 
speak fondly of it as " our constitution" — and " our invalu- 
able constitution " — but it cannot be called ours in its con- 
ception nor in its execution. Before the Act of 1774 was 
passed, Canadian witnesses were examined by the Imperial 
Parliament ; Sir Guy Carleton, Chief Justice Hay, Baron 
Maseres, and M. de Lotbiniere, were examined ; before the 
Act of 1791 was passed, Mr. Lymburner, a very able man, 
a citizen of Quebec, was examined on behalf of the British 
inhabitants of Lower Canada, and other colonists had been 
consulted by correspondence : but in framing the provisions 
of the Act of 1840 no such preliminary consultation with 
leading colonists had taken place. It was resolved upon 
in England before Lord Sydenham left ; and that energetic 
nobleman prided himself especially on the celerity with 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 161 

which he carried the foregone conclusion of his colleagues 
into effect. He gave the Special Council of Lower Canada 
less than a week's time to deliberate — he gave the Parlia- 
ment of Upper Canada a fortnight j after listening to both 
lie heeded neither; he confesses in his private correspon- 
dence that he thought the best thing for Lower Canada 
" would be ten years more of despotism j " but he could 
not personally afford to wait ten years ; he had arrived in 
the last week of October, 1839, and he boasted, within two 
months from that date, before the end of December, he 
had carried the Union, -so far as Canada could assent or 
make submission. (Hear, hear.) And this is the origin of 
the measure — the work of two or three men, done in a 
hurry, in two short months — which is spoken of in the 
same sense as the British Constitution — the work of many 
generations of men — the foundations of which, like Cologne 
Cathedral, were the work of one age, the superstructure of 
another, the completion of a third, the embellishment of a 
fourth; winch is compared to the American Constitution, 
the product of the wisest men, gathered in from the Ken- 
nebec to the Altampa, sitting in conclave, under the presi- 
dency of a Washington, or engaged in the discussions of 
the "Federalist" or the Forum for seven whole years 
together ! Mr. Speaker, there is no sanctity of age about 
this Constitution of ours ; we cannot invoke its provisions 
as "the wisdom of our ancestors !" neither were the means 
by which it was carried, such as to surround it with any 
great halo of glory. There was no chivalric gathering, 
such as met at Eunnymede ; no learned assembly, such as 
sat at Annapolis ; the free voices of the people were not 
heard demanding it; no fair representation of the people 
existed at the time even in Upper Canada : it was carried 
by sheer Imperial influence, executive address, and the 
advance of £1,500,000 sterling for public works. — The 
Sydenham loan carried the Sydenham Union, and the 
instrument thus framed deserves for its origin no other 
reverence than such as may fairly be attached to its authors, 
Lord Sydenham and Lord John Eussell. It is in this 
sense Lord Grey speaks of Lord Sydenham, as having 



162 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

" assumed the government ;" and that Lord Metcalfe, in his 
despatch to Lord Stanley, of the 5th of May, 1843, speaks 
of Lord Sydenham, as " the fabricator of the form of 
Government now existing in this Province." — When 
lion, gentlemen attribute to " the Act of Union " the ad- 
vantages which have sometimes flowed from the system of 
responsible government, they commit, it seems to me, a 
serious anachronism. Responsible government is nowhere 
conceded in the Act of Union. (Hear, hear.) Neither 
Lord Sydenham, nor his second and ablest successor, Lord 
Metcalfe, recognised "responsible government" in the sense 
we now use it, as inherent in the Act of Union. As Lord 
Metcalfe observes of his predecessor, he " scouted the idea " 
of responsible government in his despatches. After the 
Union was consummated at Kingston, he practically ac- 
cepted it, or submitted to circumstances he could not 
control, by admitting that members of the Executive 
Council ought not to continue such, when they ceased to 
command the confidence of a majority of this House. 
Lord Metcalfe certainly did not recognise that theory ; nor 
did the Colonial Ministers, his immediate superiors ; Lord 
Elgin, so bitterly abused yesterday from the benches oppo- 
site, may be called the first Governor- General who acted 
consistently on the theory — and he did not arrive here 
till the seventh year after the Union. Let us, therefore, 
not confound two things — the Act of 1840 and the estab- 
lishment of responsible government ; let us not credit to a 
false cause whatever good results have sprung from another, 
and a subsequent advance towards legislative independence. 
And, after all, in what does this " responsibility " of 
ministers to this House or the country consist? On the 
vigilance and patriotism of the majority of the House I 
admit it ought to depend; but on what does it really 
depend ? I answer — and the records of our recent as well 
as of our earlier politics under the Union bear me out — it 
depends as much, if not more, on the personal qualities of 
the Governor sent us — on his capacity, his firmness, and 
his superiority to personal influences — as on the will of this 
House. It does not exist in your Union Act, nor in any 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 163 

other fundamental law. It exists mainly in the personal 
character of the Governor. When you get a Governor who 
respects public opinion, who has had a constitutional 
training, who is by temper as well as by information 
fit to be the head of a great constitutional State — which 
every public man chosen by favouritism or chance medley 
is not (hear, hear) — then you have .Responsible Govern- 
ment ; but not otherwise. (Hear, hear.) For it is a 
very different thing, Mr. Speaker, moving in a prescribed 
orbit, as ministers in England, carrying out a consti- 
tution which every body around them habitually obeys, 
from trying to work an ill-defined constitution, in a new 
state of society, supplementing the defects of that con- 
stitution out of the resources of your own wisdom, and 
justice and foresight. That constitution which depends on 
the will of any one man, however high he may be, or the 
will of any number of men, is no constitution, is undeserving 
the name of a constitution. I know very well that the 
theory is, that ministers cannot remain in office without 
being sustained by a majority of this House. But there is 
another power which may have more to do with keeping 
them in office, under the present system, than a majority of 
this House, or their own electors, once they are elected. 
Give any ministry, however scraped together, a chamber of 
one hundred and thirty members, not divided by deep and 
broad party lines — give them, at the same time, a pliable, 
or partisan, or incapable Governor, who will permit them a 
profuse use of the public money, under the colour of 
" Orders in Council" — and such a ministry, however dis- 
trusted or detested in the country, may continue to rule 
this House for four consecutive years, or as long as such a 
Governor remains. Is it not so ? Is not this the plainest 
lesson which Time, and Experience have taught us from 
our existing constitution ? And where, even with a new 
Parliament or a new Governor — where is the redress of the 
people against a bad minister? He may lay down his 
portfolio, and laugh us all to scorn. He may retire from 
official station, and you cannot follow him to the back 
benches or the cross benches. You cannot reach him 

m 2 



164 BKITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

when he is in — you cannot reach him when he is out. 
Where, then, is your " Responsible Government ? " Can 
there be responsibility of ministers without a penalty ? It 
seems to me there cannot. And if not, where is your 
penalty ? Have you not the same radical defect which Mr. 
Grattan found in the constitution of his country, when he 
exclaimed, in allusion to the Roman fasces, " Ireland has 
no axe, and therefore she has no honest minister." I am 
well aware that, practically, the power .of impeachment has 
fallen into comparative disuse in England, and has been 
very rarely resorted to in the United States ; but I know 
that it exists in the constitution of both — that it is not a 
dead letter — that it has been used with terrible effect in 
times past, just as the great guns under our windows, 
though silent now and somewhat rusted, can yet serve 
every purpose for which they were originally cast from the 
furnace, and mounted where they stand. But, sir, w r e are 
told by the hon. member for North Hastings, that we owe 
to the Union, unqualifiedly — apart from the system of re- 
sponsibility — whatever monetary credit the Province has 
enjoyed the past dozen or twenty years. Sir, I am not a 
disunionist, and I hold, of course, that some form of union 
is essential to our common credit, and most beneficial to 
our common progress. I do not think it possible that 
Upper and Lower Canada, once separated, could advance, 
or command one means of progress — money — in anything 
like the proportion which they can, being united. Disso- 
lution, " pure and simple/'' as the phrase is, I consider very 
simple indeed ; I consider it altogether retrograde ; and I 
do not believe the youngest man in this House will ever 
live to see it. (Hear, .hear.) But because I am a unionist, 
must I, therefore, be for this Act of Union and for no 
other ? Or, is it even possible for me, or for any one, to 
stand by Lord Sydenham's union at this time of day ? Sir, 
it is not possible ; for that union, such as it was, no longer 
exists ; it has been frittered away, year by year, by Imperial 
legislation and by Provincial legislation, till it now hangs 
in tatters upon the expanding frame of this colony. Of its 
■sixty-two clauses, no less than thirty have been repealed by 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 165 

statute within the last ten years ! The 4th clause, in re- 
lation to the Legislative Council, has been repealed ; the 
required sanction of the two-thirds vote in Constitutional 
Changes lias gone with that clause ; the clauses from 13 
to 25, inclusive, relating to elections — to the constitution 
of this House — have been repealed ; the proviso of the 
26th clause, and the whole of the 27th clause, relating to 
the same important subject, have been repealed ; clause 
41, making the English language the official language of 
the country, has been repealed; clause 42, reserving all 
legislation on ecclesiastical matters for the Sovereign's con- 
sent, has been repealed; clause 44, relating to Provincial 
Courts of Appeal, has been superseded; clauses 50 to 57, 
inclusive, constituting the Consolidated Eevenue Eund, 
and schedules A and B of the Act referred to in those 
clauses, have all been repealed. And this is the shattered 
idol we are called upon to worship, as the image of life, 
and health, and power ! So far as it defined the powers of 
this Chamber, or the composition of the other, the Act of 
Union is defunct ; so far as it touched the delicate subjects 
of language and religion it is defunct ; so far as it consti- 
tuted Courts of Appeal, or legislated for the public credit, 
it is defunct ; and in this carcass we are asked to place all 
our trust and all our dependence for future good govern- 
ment ! But, I mistake — it is not altogether dead, though 
so dreadfully mutilated. There is still a little life left, 
which the Administration of the day draw hope from with 
desperate fidelity — the 12th section, decreeing an equality 
of representation, independent of population, and the 45 th 
section, vaguely describing the powers of the Governor- 
General and the all-important " Orders in Council ; " the 
section, also, limiting the duration of Parliament to four 
years, may be counted among the relics which remain. 
The equality clause was introduced, avowedly, into the Act, 
for the purpose of "-swamping the Erench ; " but that 
purpose has been defeated — and I rejoice that it has been 
defeated. (Hear, hear.) It was a deliberate conspiracy 
against the rights of one set of people — flagitious in the 
conception, and wholly indefensible in the enactment ; 



166 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

why, then, should it be maintained and enforced against 
another set ? (Hear, hear.) Are we, of Lower Canada, 
to rule our fellow-subjects of Upper Canada, on the Pagan 
principle of the lex talionis ? or, rather, on the Christian 
principle "of doing unto others as we would be done by ? " 
I do not say that we should place ourselves or our institu- 
tions — differing so widely as we do from Upper Canadians 
— at their mercy ; I mean nothing of the kind ; I have 
never entertained any such idea. No ! I believe that a 
remedy can be found by Upper Canada for her wrongs, and 
by Lower Canada ample safeguards for her rights ; and I 
shall immediately, with permission of the House, though 
with very great self-distrust, indicate the nature of that 
remedy, as it suggests itself to my mind. But, before I do 
so, let me ask every candid man in this Assembly, whether 
he believes the present state of things in this Province can 
be much longer maintained ? Are the people satisfied with 
the vague, unlimited power of the Executive over the public 
expenditure ? Are they satisfied with the appointment of 
strong political partisans — often by their own colleagues — 
to the judicial bench? Are elections to this House con- 
ducted on a system calculated to inspire awe and obedience 
towards the laws we make ? Is the character of this House 
elevated by the scenes which take place at our elections, by 
the notorious bribery and corruption which have been 
practised, by the fact that we met in 1858 with thirty-two 
seats in this House, out of 130, contested, with every 
fourth man in the House petitioned against ? (Hear, hear.) 
Is it the fact that the character of this House has been 
raised of late years under the working of our present 
system ? Is it the fact that a Lower Canadian majority 
persistently ruling the people of Upper Canada against their 
well-understood wishes, as expressed through their legiti- 
mate organs in this House — is that winning friends for the 
system in Upper Canada? (Hear, hear.) Is an elective 
Legislative Council, when it becomes wholly elective — as it 
soon will — is it, coming fresh from the people, likely to 
recognise in this Assembly the same monopoly of popular 
power which the House of Commons holds, in comparison 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 167 

with the hereditary House of Lords ? If, then, what 
remains of our constitution does not work satisfactorily — 
if the Legislature is losing the respect and confidence of 
the people — if the Judiciary even be sometimes looked 
upon with doubt, recruited as it is from the thick of the 
political conflict — if the Executive is not regarded with 
affection and respect by the country — if the three great 
divisions of the Government of the country have all sunk in 
the public estimation, then I put to any honest man the 
question, How does all this happen ? Is it that our 
present rulers, the Executive, or the administrators of 
justice, or the representatives of the people in this House, 
are worse men, are more prone to despotism or corruption 
than those who have gone before them, or those who may 
come after them ? I do not charge them with any innate 
depravity of that kind; but I charge the abuses which 
have crept into the provisions of the Act of Union, or the 
omissions of the Act of Union — an instrument not strong 
enough to sustain official weakness against temptations to 
go beyond the strict line of official duty — an instrument which 
makes the weak weaker, and tempts and enables the corrupt 
to become more corrupt. • (Hear, hear.) And I say, an in- 
strument like that ought not to be held up to the respect of 
this House and of this country ; and that it would be in- 
deed a poor verdict on the intelligence of the people of 
Canada, if, after twenty-three years of peace following the 
last social eommotion in this Province, if there are not 
men to be found in Canada at this day of sufficient wisdom 
to frame a much better instrument than Lord Sydenham 
improvised, and Lord John Russell imposed upon Upper 
and Lower Canada, regardless of the opposition of both. 
(Cheers.) Before I pass from this subject, there is one 
other point to which I must refer — the admitted necessity 
of Departmental Reform, which cannot be had under our 
present system. The Public Works Department is a fa- 
thomless abyss ; our Public Domain does not pay the 
wages of its overseers ; our Department of Agriculture and 
Statistics is without a head; our Emigration Service ds 
unorganised; the only active agencies of administration 



168 BKITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

are to be found in the Taxing Department and the Sueing 
Department — with the Finance Minister, the Postmaster, 
and the Attorney-General. Individual vigour, I admit, 
may do mudi towards a remedy ; but the system ought to 
be sueh as to provide against individual weakness, and to 
render mediocrity comparatively harmless. This, Sir, I fear 
we never can have, with the present arrangement of nomi- 
nal heads and irresponsible subordinates. We certainly 
have not hitherto had a satisfactory departmental system. 
(Hear, hear.) I have shown, I trust, that Lord Syden- 
ham's Union did not originate in any view to the interests 
of Canada, though I do not allege but that the interests of 
Canada have been served by that instrument, up to a cer- 
tain point. But I say it was not the act of the people of 
Canada. It was imposed on the people of Canada by Im- 
perial authority alone. It was urged on to remove an 
irksome state of things in the Province itself, and to 
strengthen the connection with the mother country. It 
was hastened at a time when its chief advocate, the Gover- 
nor-General of that day, would have needed to have been 
more than human, to have been above the impressions 
produced on his mind by all the conflicting stories and 
views pressed upon him, by men coming heated from the 
late social contest, many of whom had been actually in the 
melee of civil war. I admit that those who point out the 
defects of the present Union are bound to make a clear and 
strong case against it ;. and I think that clear and strong 
ease has been made. (Hear, hear.) I speak not now so 
much of details, as of the broad and general facts. The 
details have been elaborated with great care in several 
publications ; and, among others, in an excellent political 
document which the hon. member for North Hastings took 
as the text for his speech last night — the address of the 
lleform Convention lately held in Upper Canada. But, I 
suppose, upon this subject, we are all free companions on 
this side of the House, and each of us has some peculiar 
view of his own, which he will express, as I have risen to 
do, in pronouncing an opinion on the motion of the hon. 
member for Toronto. I should have preferred, I admit, 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 169 

to have voted upon that motion with some modifications ; 
but I am now debarred from doing so by the motion of 
the previous question moved by the member for Hastings ; 
so that now we shall have to vote for or against it in the 
form in which it has been proposed. (Hear, hear.) As I 
am debarred from voting for any modification of that mo- 
tion, I am prepared fully to concur in the opinion, that the 
Act of Union has not answered the designs of its projec- 
tors — that it has not fulfilled what they claim for it — that 
it has been already in great part repealed — that it has no 
longer, so to speak, "a leg to stand upon" — that it is not 
now in existence in this Province. The question, then, is 
a question of remedy. The hon. member for Hastings, 
last night, twitted the hon. member for Toronto that he 
had no remedy to propose. I have no doubt, when we 
come to that stage of the matter, remedies will be as thick 
as blackberries. I have no doubt every one who has ever 
opened a constitutional book will have his own scheme of 
the distribution of functions, and of joint authority, of the 
proportion of power to be exercised by the central autho- 
rity, and the proportion to be retained by the local govern- 
ments. There is no subject, perhaps, on which the human 
mind can exercise itself, so capable of endless combina- 
tions, as the question of civil government. Perhaps, 
even that science, the subtlest of all sciences, Theology, 
is not more full of acute distinctions than this compara- 
tively modern science, of the formation of constitutions 
and the distribution of powers. Now my own humble 
view, which I offer to the House for what it is worth, is, 
that the remedy which will suit our circumstances, is a bold 
application of the federal principle. I am prepared to apply 
that remedy to our position with the sanction of the people of 
both sections of the Province, and not otherwise. But the 
best and most desirable thing, to my mind, is the Federal 
Union of all the North American colonies — and I think it 
not only a more desirable thing, but a more practical thing. 
I think every man in this House who has given careful 
consideration to the subject, must see that dissolution pure 
and simple is entirely out of the question; that an abso- 



170 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

late dissolution of the Union is an impossibility. We are 
not our own masters in that respect at all events. We 
have to get the consent of the Empire, and the consent of 
the public creditor, and the whole tendency of these modern 
times is against it. Every invention for diminishing the 
obstacle of space, for the multiplication of ideas, for the 
swifter communication of intelligence, is against it — art is 
against it — science is against it — nature is against it. 
Dissolution pure and simple, no man on the floor of this 
House, I believe, ever will live to see, should he live to be 
as old as the oldest of his ancestors. But, while I believe 
that to be neither the desirable nor the practical remedy, I 
say it is easier to obtain, and we have already obtained, the 
sanction of the Imperial authorities to enter into the con- 
sideration of the question of the general federation. Yet 
to work out this cure even with the sanction of the metro- 
politan power, much time for deliberation, and many mutual 
conferences, will be necessary. If the Legislatures of the 
Lower Colonies, and our own, were prepared for it, the 
initiative ought to be taken immediately upon the visit of 
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, for even then, it 
would probably be 1864 or 1865 before all the obstacles 
could be removed, and all the arrangements agreed upon. 
It would, however, be something to hope for, and to work 
for, and to wait for, in the interim ; it would occupy the 
hearts and minds of all the statesmen of all the colonies, 
and prepare them by correspondence and intercourse to act 
understanding^ together, when they should come together. 
I rest the advocacy of a Federal Union of all the Provinces 
mainly on these grounds. First. — That a Unity of all 
the Provinces is desirable commercially, and would be bene- 
ficial to each. Secondly. — That a mere Commercial Union, 
such as the German Zollverein, without the superintendence 
of some central political power, would not give sufficient 
security for the interests of all members of the confederacy. 
Thirdly. — That such a union is a necessary complement of 
our present colonial system, — unless we are to look forward 
to annexation to the United States. FourtJdy. — That while 
the tendencies of our times are all in favour of such Unions, 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 171 

the obstacles in our way are not greater than those which 
have been repeatedly overcome by other disunited States 
and Provinces. That a Union of the colonies is desirable 
commercially, was, I think, very clearly shown to this 
House two sessions since, by the present Finance Minister 
— though he did not then put his resolution to the vote. 
Had he done so, I should have felt it my duty to vote with 
him, as I did subsequently on the subject of an Inter- 
colonial Railway. It is desirable commercially for Canada, 
that we should have an addition of a million consumers to 
our domestic market. It is desirable that but one tariff 
and custom system should prevail throughout all these 
Provinces. How is it now ? With half a dozen different 
tariffs and different currencies, with New Brunswick and 
Nova Scotia taxing each other's industry, and both taxing 
ours, is it possible we should grow in numbers or in wealth 
in the ratio of the conterminous New England States ? It 
is not possible, as we find to our cost. While the New 
England States average thirty inhabitants to the square 
mile, Canada averages but seven, and New Brunswick and 
Nova Scotia, taken together, but eleven. The statistics of 
Intercolonial trade, contrasted with our trade to the United 
States, shows what "a triangular duel" we are engaged in, 
at the expense of each other's safety and property. In 
1857 we exported to the United States breadstuff's to the 
value of 1,776,250/., or near $9,000,000, while the two 
adjoining Provinces imported from the United States bread- 
stuffs to' the value of 408,000/., or $2,000,000. On the 
other hand we imported from the United States, West 
Indies produce to the value of $4,500,000, while our 
exports to the West Indies were nil. New Brunswick, 
however, in the same year imported from the West Indies 
to the value of 40,000/., and Nova Scotia to the amount 
of 322,000/.-— in all, to the amount of say, $1,800,000— 
a figure which shows how possible it is to carry on much 
of our West India trade through the agency of the sister 
Provinces. I instance only these two articles of commerce 
— West Indian goods and breadstuffs. But there are 



172 BRITISH-AMERICAN" UNION. 

other mediums of exchange between us. Nova Scotia has 
coal, — we have none ; and fuel, at least in Lower Canada, 
we are told is becoming every day more scarce and dear : 
Upper Canada exports flour, and imports West Indian 
goods — fish and coal ; we manufacture many articles which 
the Lower Provinces want, and they produce or can pro- 
fitably procure us others which we require. What then 
is wanting to our mutually benefiting each other ? I 
answer — intercourse — association — union. (Hear, hear.) 
It is argued that no intercourse exists, and, therefore, 
that no commerce could exist. Create the intercourse, and 
you create the commerce. Would the Reciprocity Treaty 
have been of any practical value to any portion of Canada, 
if it were not for the canals and railways on our side the 
line, and the other ? There are the broad facts — a million 
of consumers at our own doors — our own fellow-subjects — 
with wants which we can supply, and commodities to ex- 
change — yet they profit nothing from our vicinage, nor we 
by them. At this moment each of these Colonies is much 
more profitable to the United States than to Canada ; we 
have reciprocity with strangers, but none with our fellow - 
subjects. When I place the necessity for a general federa- 
tion on commercial grounds in the first instance, I do not 
mean to say, Mr. Speaker, that a mere commercial union 
without a central political power, could accomplish any 
great things. I know there is the example of the Zollverein, 
which, since 1838, has extended its circles from the Rhine 
to the Russian frontier — over 40,000,000 of consumers. 
Where would the Zollverein be, without the sustaining and 
directing power of Prussia ? Where would any commercial 
union be without a tariff-making and treaty-making power? 
The experience of the Hanse towns and the Italian Repub- 
lics — the experience even of those separated Provinces is 
full of instruction on this head. The territorial interests 
of New Brunswick were sacrificed in the Ashburton Terri- 
tory, the ship-building interests of all our seaports were 
sacrificed in the Reciprocity Treaty — the American coasting 
trade has been lost to us, by the indifference of Imperial 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 173 

statesmen — the interests of Newfoundland have three times 
been on the point of being given up to France within six 
or seven years. Can any one suppose that if we had a 
central political power — strong enough to protect every 
member of what Mr. Caming called "the Great British 
Confederacy" of North America — such things could ever 
happen again ? My third ground is, Sir, that such a 
Union as I am considering is a necessary complement to 
our colonial representative system — unless we look forward 
— which I believe no one in this House does — to annexa- 
tion to the United States, (Hear, hear.) Sir, we have 
already advanced too far for dependencies, to halt in our 
march towards nationality. On what principles that nation- 
ality will ultimately repose — whether on British or on 
American principles — whether we are likely to become part 
of a Northern Eepublic, flanked by Southern slavery, or a 
secundo-geniture in the royal family of England — I do not 
now mean to discuss. One thing is certain, we have 
advanced, and must continue to advance. The law of our 
youth is growth, the law of our growth is progress. Now, 
if to the next step, we are to take, as well as those we have 
taken in 1774, 1791, and 1840, the consent of the Empire 
is essential, can we have that consent for a dissolution of 
the Canadian Union ? I think not. Eor a Canadian 
Federation ? Possibly. For a general federation, retain- 
ing the connection? It has been given over and over 
again; Lord Grey, Sir Lytton Bulwer, Mr. Labouchere, — 
almost every Colonial Secretary of late years, — has declared 
it to be our own affair, with which the metropolitan power 
has no desire to interfere unfavourably. Nova Scotia is 
ripe for it; New Brunswick, as I had reason to believe 
last year, during a visit to that country, is not actively 
adverse to it ; the political interest below Quebec will be 
in its favour ; and the commercial interest in England is 
well disposed towards it. I hold in my hand petitions 
presented to the Imperial Parliament during the present 
year by many of the leading houses of Liverpool and 
Glasgow; the Cunards, Gilmores, Dunlops, Eichardsons, 



174 BEITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

Gillespies,— -names powerful alike on 'Change and in the 
reception room of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. These 
petitions not only show that it is commercially, but politi- 
cally, desirable to draw all these colonies close together. 
The petitioners pray for an Imperial aid of 60,000/. a year 
for seven years, to complete the 400 miles of railway which 
would connect Halifax with Quebec. They point out that 
the defence of these colonies costs the Imperial Exchequer 
420,000/. per annum, which this road would in great part 
supersede ; and every argument for the road tells equally 
for the federation. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I have said that 
the tendencies of our times are all in favour of such a 
Union as I speak of, while the obstacles in our way are not 
greater than have been often overcome by other separated 
States and Provinces. It is true, we are of unequal size, 
with unequal resources, and different degrees of indebted- 
ness, but the local governments may harmonise all these 
inequalities. We are of different religions; yet the two 
great divisions of Christians — Catholics and Protestants — 
would be, as nearly as possible, balanced, in a union of all 
the colonies. We are a northern people, and must be a 
commercial people ; the bonds of interest would therefore 
bind us. We would have* in our favour the river system 
of the North, from the mouth of the Gulf to the head of 
Lake Superior. We have not a tithe of the difficulties to 
overcome which the fathers of the Swiss, Dutch, and 
American Confederacies overcame. Difficulties indeed there 
are, but none, Sir, in my humble judgment, which could 
not be got over in an amicable Conference of the Colonies ; 
and as I once heard the hon. member from South Ontario 
(Mr. Mowatt) ask — " What are statesmen fit for, if not to 
overcome difficulties ? " I cannot believe that any one 
here has a vested interest in the continuance of our dis- 
union. There may be those who imagine that such a plan 
as I have sketched would prove fatal to their self-importance; 
who, as is said — I think unjustly said — of Julius Csesar, 
" would rather be first in a village than second in Kome." 
We can understand that there might be such persons, even 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 175 

in this House, but I believe there are other members of 
the Canadian Parliament endued with a wider vision and 
better aspirations — men who do not fear to meet in debate 
all the talents of all the Provinces ; men, who would feel a 
generous satisfaction in confronting the ablest of their 
fellow-subjects in amicable controversy. Por such men 
the prospect of a broader arena, and less manageable 
majorities, has no terrors ; they would welcome with en- 
thusiasm the dawning of the day which was to enlarge our 
horizon, and open before us new fields of labour and of 
honour. (Hear, hear.) I conclude, Sir, as I began, by 
entreating the House to believe that I have spoken with- 
out respect of persons, and with a sole single desire for the 
increase, prosperity, freedom, and honour of this incipient 
Northern nation. I call it a Northern nation — for such it 
must become if all of us do but do our duty to the last. 
Men do not talk on this continent of changes wrought by 
centuries, but of the events of years. Men do not vegetate 
in this age as they did formerly, in one spot, occupying one 
position. Thought outruns the steam car, and hope out- 
flies the telegraph. We live more in ten years in this era 
than the patriarchs did in a thousand. The patriarch 
might outlive the palm-tree which was planted to com- 
memorate his birth, and yet not see so many wonders as 
we have witnessed since the Constitution we are now dis- 
cussing was formed. What marvels have not been wrought 
in Europe and America from 1840 to 1860 ? — and who 
can say the world — or our own portion of it more par- 
ticularly — is incapable of maintaining till the end of the 
century the ratio of the past progress ? I, for one, cannot 
presume to say so. I look to the future of my adopted 
country with hope, though not without anxiety ; 1 see in 
the not remote distance, one great nationality bound, like 
the shield of Achilles, by the blue rim of ocean — I see it 
quartered into many communities — each disposing of its 
internal affairs — but all bound together by free institutions, 
free intercourse, and free commerce; I see within the round 
of that shield, the peaks of the Western mountains and the 



176 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

crests of the Eastern waves — the winding Assinaboine, the 
five-fold lakes, the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, the Saguenay, 
the St. John, and the Basin of Minas — by all these flowing- 
waters, in all the valleys they fertilise, in all the cities they 
visit in their courses, I see a generation of industrious, 
contented, moral men, free in name and in fact, — men 
capable of maintaining, in peace and in war, a Constitution 
worthy of such a country. (The hon. gentleman resumed 
his seat amidst loud and general applause.) 



REPRESENTATION BY POPULATION. 

Legislative Assembly, Quebec, March 28th, 1861. 

Mr. McGee — Suffering from a severe cold, as I am, 
Mr. Speaker (which rendered it physically impossible for 
me to be at the division last night), I shall not detain the 
House long in stating my reasons for the vote I intend to 
give. I wish distinctly to state, why, if I had been able to 
have been here last night, I should have voted against the 
proposition of Representation by Population, as introduced, 
though agreeing in the justice, and believing in the triumph 
of the principle as applied to the composition of this House. 
(Hear, hear.) Since I have had a seat in this House, I 
have always voted against that proposition, introduced 
singly and alone, because I believe we ought to have no 
fundamental change in this House, which was not to be 
accompanied by some simultaneous check introduced into 
other parts of the system. (Hear, hear.) Do gentlemen, 
who advocate this principle for this House, propose to apply 
it to the other House ? I believe not. But what effective 
corrective will the other chamber, elective as it is, supply 
against the change to be wrought in this ? Are you willing 
to go back and declare the other House constituted en 
permanence — for life ? Are you willing to restore the 
nominative power to the Crown, or leave it with the district, 
for which the member may decease ? Are you willing to 
constitute the other House on the principle of equality, if 
you have your fair, popular representation in this House, 
which originates the money bills ? These, gentlemen, are 
considerations which must accompany the practical adop- 
tion of Representation by Population, and though I blame 
nobody for recording his vote for an abstract principle, 



178 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

your question will not be a practical one, till you are pre- 
pared to consider it with all its pendants, conditions, and 
surroundings. (Hear, hear.) I hope to see a party — I 
hope to see a government who will be so prepared to con- 
sider it, and to overhaul our whole constitutional system, 
or rather no system, for at present we have none. At 
present, the Act of Union hangs in shreds and tatters on 
the statute book; 27 out of 62 clauses, with schedules A 
and B, having been superseded or repealed, by Imperial or 
Provincial legislation. (Hear, hear.) Thirty-five clauses 
— and these, except the twelfth, of little importance — are 
all that remain. It is a disgrace to the intelligence of the 
House, of the country, and of the age we live in, that such 
a tattered garment should be all we have to clothe the 
limbs of this young giant nation. (Hear, hear.) This, 
Mr. Speaker, is not a subject for heat — not a subject on 
which it is seemly to talk of bloodshed, on one side or 
the other. The hon. member for Portneuf, and the hon. 
member for Laprairie, are ready to shed their blood in 
resisting Representation by Population ; while the hon. 
member for Peel is prepared to shed his blood to obtain it. 
I ought to congratulate the House on this increase of the 
martial spirit (laughter), but I prefer to look at the ques- 
tion from a general point of view, as one might look from 
the summit of the "Two Mountains" upon the Ottawa 
river, from which you can see both Upper and Lower 
Canada at once. (Cheers.) 

Besides the considerations affecting the other House, 
involved in any other fundamental alterations in our own 
organisation, there will be the consideration of the relation 
which the Judiciary of Canada are to sustain to the other 
departments of Government in the new system. In Eng- 
land, it was an ancient constitutional usage for the Sovereign, 
or both Houses, to submit queries on constitutional subjects 
to the Judges ; but the legislative bodies have not hesitated 
at times to vote the answers of the Judges " insufficient/' 
and to affirm other principles, in resolutions or enactments 
of their own. In the United States, the Supreme Court 
has always been an essential department of the Govern- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 179 

ment; if we are to frame constitutional changes with a 
view to permanency, it will be imperative on us to define 
the relation of the Judges to the Legislature and the Exe- 
cutive. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, the subject of constitutional 
changes involves another — our relations to the Imperial 
Government. While I utterly protest against the Imperial 
Government imposing a ready-made constitution upon us, 
I know very well that it is not possible, neither is it desir- 
able, that we should enter on the administration of an 
improved system until the Imperial Government have sanc- 
tioned it. (Hear, hear.) Do I think such a new system 
as I indicated would weaken or destroy the connection with 
Great Britain ? Everything of course would depend on its 
executory chief; but as one who believes that where cir- 
cumstances are not forced, as much legal liberty may be 
enjoyed with an hereditary as with an elective chief; as 
one who has no prejudices against a constitutional monarchy, 
really founded upon, and therefore subject to, the funda- 
mental law ; as one holding these general views, I should 
be prepared to see the connection strengthened at this side 
by a vice-royalty, which should become a secundo geniture 
in Her Majesty's family, and give the possessor rank imme- 
diately after the heir-apparent. (Hear, hear.) I throw 
out this view with great deference, as a long-entertained 
idea, rather than a complete conviction ; but I throw it out 
for the consideration of those who are groundlessly alarmed, 
that the very discussion of constitutional changes threatens 
the connection. On the contrary, it seems to me, in the 
adoption of a permanent and comprehensive system, the 
Imperial bond, if so desired on both sides, might be im- 
bedded and preserved for ages. (Hear, hear.) Another 
guarantee of that description would be a Colonial repre- 
sentation in the Imperial Parliament ; a reform in the 
metropolitan constitution, long foreseen and foreshown by 
many able men, both British and foreign, among whom I 
may mention the name of Dr. Francis Lieber, in his ad- 
mirable history of "Civil Liberty and Self-Government." 
(Hear.) But whatever may be the precise distribution of 
powers, I shall always maintain, Mr. Speaker, that such a 

N 2 



180 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

constitution should originate among ourselves (hear, hear) ; 
that it should spring from the sensus communis of Canada, 
and the other Provinces, if they coalesce ; that it should be 
the product of the best heads, both in and out of political 
life, in these colonies ; that it should not be imposed upon 
us as a mere Imperial edict by the Minister of the day in 
Downing Street, though I cheerfully admit we must go to 
Downing Street for its final sanction. (Cheers.) With 
these guarantees — an equality secured to territory in the 
Upper House — above all, with the Imperial indorsement on 
its back, it is necessary to suppose one of two things before 
we can dream of the violation of such a compact. Either 
Lower or Upper Canada should conspire in secret and 
revolt, or the Imperial power should join one or other to 
oppress one or the other. (Hear, hear.) For your reli- 
gious guarantee, gentlemen of Lower Canada, insert in 
such an instrument, so sanctioned, the very words of the 
capitulation of Quebec, and so long as you are a million 
strong — 100,000 fighting men with the free use of arms — 
you may laugh to scorn any violence to your institutions, 
even if any one were mad enough and wicked enough to 
attempt such violence. (Cheers.) I submit, Mr. Speaker, 
that 1 have indicated sufficiently my own objections to any 
unconsidered and unqualified change, without taking up 
the whole system and viewing it in all its parts. I am not 
opposed — I am in favour of the representation of the tax- 
paying many in this House, which votes and disposes of 
those taxes ; but I am against piecemeal legislation, on the 
frame of the Government itself. If the old house will not 
stand, let us take it down and erect a new one, according 
to our enlarged means and increased family. But the word 
dissolution — divorce — what the old Jurists called separatis- 
ms — ought never to be heard in this House. (Hear, hear.) 
Another term of almost equally evil import is that too 
often heard in this debate, " my section of the country/' 
We have nothing to do with sections here; we are the 
Commons of Canada. Sir, perhaps I am in a too sanguine 
mood of the triumph of what 1 believe to be the right 
principles, but though they are thus wrangling for recog- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 181 

nition, there are three things I do not despair of : I do not 
despair of the adoption of the principle of numbers as the 
basis of representation in the popular branch of the future 
Parliament of Canada; I do not despair of this principle 
being engrafted in a new Constitutional Act, or Magna 
Charta, which shall be in great part framed by our leading 
spirits, which Act shall be entirely assented to by the large 
majority of the people of Lower Canada ; nor do I despair 
of seeing under this generous, wise, and tolerant constitu- 
tion, the admission, if not at the outset, then at some future 
day, of the other British North American Provinces. (Hear, 
hear.) I shall vote, Sir, for both amendments, though I 
much prefer that of my hon. friend, the member for Mon- 
treal. As, however, the amendment of the hon. member 
for Cornwall does not pretend to lay down the " Double 
Majority" as a rule or principle, but simply declares it 
" highly desirable," with our present imperfect system, that 
the actual Government should not be carried on without a 
majority in both sections, I intend to vote for that also ; 
no doubt it is " highly desirable while the present system 
continues." (Cheers.) 



CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN 
UPPER AND LOWER CANADA. 

House of Assembly, at Quebec, April 17th, 1861. 

After some introductory remarks, Mr. McGee said : — 
I proceed now to the general question — Shall we, or shall 
we not, have such constitutional changes as our present 
circumstances, our twenty years' experience of Responsible 
Government, and a majority of our fellow-subjects, demand 
at our hands ? (Hear, hear.) The arguments addressed to 
this House in favour of maintaining things as they are, 
by the three Cabinet Ministers from Lower Canada having 
seats in this House, and by several members, their parti- 
sans, (who may be called the buttresses of the Administra- 
tion joined to it and supporting it from without,) were 
mainly three : 1. The example of Great Britain, of whose 
institutions ours were said to be a transcript : 2. The 
recent sad experience of the United States — held up to us 
for our warning : 3. The determination of Prench Canadians 
never to entertain at any future time, near or distant, the 
question of readjusting the popular representation in this 
House. I think these three heads include all the argument 
or show of argument that was made on the other side, 
and when I examine the two former — the American and 
British precedents — I shall feel free to discuss the con- 
sequences of the utterly impracticable policy foreshadowed 
in the ultimatum of " things as they are " for another ten 
years. (Hear, hear.) I deny, Sir, at the outset with the 
member for South Ontario, that our system can be con- 
sidered a transcript of the British Constitution. Where is 
the resemblance — not to say identity ? England has three 
"estates" — a Sovereign_and two Houses; and we have 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 183 

three branches of Legislature, a Governor and two 
Chambers. But France, and Prussia, and Belgium, and 
the United States, have also two Chambers and an Execu- 
tive, or Sovereign. If we look below the surface we will 
find that in the present distribution of our powers, we 
depart almost as widely from the British system, in several 
important particulars, as the United States, or some others 
of the countries just named. In the Constitutional Act of 
1791, and even in the Act of Union, the distribution of 
powers was essentially different from what it is now. 
Then, the Governor-General had a judicial function as part 
of the Court of Appeals — now he has no judicial function ; 
then the Upper House was nominative and might have 
been hereditary, now it is elective and ephemeral; then 
there was legal provision made for the maintenance of the 
Church of England, now you have a Statute, ratified by an 
Imperial Act, declaring it to be essential to abolish " the 
very semblance of the connection between Church and 
State." Without judicial powers in your Executive, 
without an ecclesiastical, judicial, or hereditary element in 
your Upper House, where is the much-talked-of transcript' 
of the British Constitution ? In the powers and functions 
of this House, we might, indeed, find a close resemblance 
to the composition of the British House of Commons, if it 
were not for the 12th section of the Act of Union, which 
is the real basis of this House; the clause decreeing 
equality of representation to the two former Provinces of 
Upper and Lower Canada. Is it not this clause, by your 
own showing, that gives a federative character to this 
assembly ; and where, let me ask, can you show a federative 
clause in the Reform Bill of 1832, in the Bill of Eights, 
or the Acts of Union with Ireland or Scotland — or in any 
other fundamental law of England, defining the character 
of their House of Commons ? No such provision exists, 
and consequently each of our three branches of the 
Legislature contains within it principles, or modifications 
of principles, absolutely unknown to the British system. 
(Hear, hear.) The British system, Mr. Speaker, as a very 
cursory acquaintance with its history shows, was originally 



184 BRITISH- AMEKICAN UNION. 

constructed on the principle of a domestic balance of 
power, and although it has undergone important modifica- 
tions, it has never wholly lost its original character. In 
its first stages, the balance was between the Clergy and 
Nobles — "the spirituality and the temporality/' as they 
were anciently called. A radical innovation was made by 
the great partisan leader Simon de Montfort, now better 
known as a soldier than a statesman, when he introduced 
the representation of borough towns. Before his day the 
tenants holding in capita, and by knights' service in the 
counties, looked with the same indifference on the claims 
of the mere mechanics of the towns, that the hon. gentle- 
man does on the majority of Upper Canada; but when 
de Montfort's reform began to take effect on the system, 
especially after the Eeformation had displaced the clerical 
equipoise, the balance was formed by the town and country 
party — and that continued to be the case till the Reform 
Bill of 1832, and still, in part, continues. In England this 
offsetting of interests and classes was possible, for the soil 
of England was held by feudal tenure, and so early as the 
reign of the first Stuart, 8000 towns could be counted 
within the kingdom. In England, as Eomilly said of 
India, "distinctions of class are religiously preserved;" 
in England there are estates of the Crown, of the Peerage, 
and of the Commons ; but in Canada we have nothing of 
the kind. In Canada we have been obliged to extinguish 
the only feudal tenure which remained on the Continent, 
and to substitute for it, the tenure of "free and com- 
mon soccage" — the universal tenure of the British 
American Colonies, a tenure fatal to the growth of 
sustenance of a landed aristocracy. I freely admit, there- 
fore, with all the hon. gentlemen who have made that 
assertion, that the British system is not now and never was 
founded on the basis of numbers alone; but at the same 
time I assert, we never had a close copy of that system, and 
that every year since the Union we have been departing, 
under the pressure of circumstances, more and more from 
the general resemblance which our Constitutional Acts once 
bore to that original. But, Sir, I might go even farther 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 185 

than this — I might assert with truth, that for the last half 
century and upwards, much of the best intellect of England 
has been devoted to equalising the representation of the 
people in the Commons House of Parliament. What was 
the method pursued by Earl Grey's administration when 
they brought in their Reform Bill in 1832? They em- 
ployed Lieut. Drummond, an expert at calculations, to 
classify the towns and counties of England into five classes 
or schedules, in proportion to their population and taxation. 
Lieut. Drummond' s decimal tables were a main point of 
attack by the Disraeli of that day — Mr. John Wilson 
Croker. Every advocate of the bill defended their accu- 
racy ; and upon the basis of those calculations the Reform 
was carried, and the Representation still stands. Why 
were St. Michael's, and St. Mawes, Gatton, and Old Sarum 
disfranchised ? Why were Manchester and Leeds enfran- 
chised ? Because the former were dispeopled, and the 
latter were populous towns ; and was not that a long 
stride towards the representation of members ? This is a 
very slight sketch of the history of the latest British re- 
form : before, however, I pass away from it, I beg to 
observe, in answer to what fell from the Hon. Provincial 
Secretary and other gentlemen, who referred to the unequal 
representation of Ireland in the Imperial Parliament, that 
the Irish liberal or patriotic party have always considered 
that inequality a flagrant injustice. The Hon. Secretary 
alluded to Mr. O'Connell on this point, and was glad to 
find that I considered him a greater authority now than 
when he was living. Sir, I had the honour to know him 
slightly in his latter days, and the misfortune to differ from 
that illustrious man, to whose memory I may be permitted 
to render the homage of my more mature judgment. It 
has been my lot, Sir, to have seen many and to have known 
a few, a very few, historical persons, but I can truly say 
that, apart from the exaggeration of native patriotism, I 
never approached a person who seemed more truly de- 
serving the title of " great " than Mr. O'Connell. When 
I consider his exclusively Gaelic origin, his provincial birth, 
his proscribed creed, his foreign education; when I con- 



186 BEITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

sider that the English tongue, destined to be his sole 
arsenal, equipment, and resource, was neither the language 
of his childhood in Kerry, nor of his studies in France ; 
when I consider all the foes he overcame within and with- 
out ; when I remember that he entered the Imperial Par- 
liament for the first time at the age of 54; and the 
position he made and held till the last in that fastidious 
assembly ; I feel that I do not place him too highly, when 
I claim that he should be ranked among the most original 
politicians of modern times. (Hear, hear.) Well, Sir, on 
this very subject before us what was Mr. O'Connell's stand- 
ing complaint? — "The county of Cork has 880,000 inhabi- 
tants, and (with her boroughs) six members; the princi- 
pality of Wales has some 900,000 inhabitants, and yet 
Wales has 29 members ! Is this justice to Ireland, is this 
a union which should be upheld by Irishmen?" Such 
were the arguments of that great popular leader, and such 
was the doctrine of all the Irish liberal party — a school to 
which, in some things, though not in all things, I am as 
proud to declare my adhesion to-day as I was in the earlier 
and more enthusiastic years of my life. (Hear, hear.) The 
recent sad experience of the United States has been fre- 
quently held up to us as a warning against extending the 
power of the people in this House, during this debate. 
Every one of the gentlemen who so admonished us assumed 
one and the same case — the excess of the democratic 
element in that constitution as the origin of its disruption. 
Mr. Speaker, I sympathise deeply with the proud and sen- 
sitive American people, who, for the first time within living 
memory, are doomed to hear their country spoken of in 
accents of pity. I sympathise with them, and with human 
nature deeply concerned in the issue of the American ex- 
periment; but I maintain that it is our duty in the 
presence of such events as are now unfortunately occurring 
in the United States, not to volunteer our testimony on 
slight or insufficient grounds against man's capacity for 
self-government in the New World (hear, hear), not to 
attempt to wring a distorted moral, unfavourable to human 
rights, from a hurried survey of the facts. (Hear, hear.) 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 187 

Next to the people of the Free States, we ourselves possess 
the largest powers of self-government wielded anywhere on 
this continent, and we ought to be bailsmen with them for 
our common liberties, derived from a common root, rather 
than witnesses against them. (Cries of "hear, hear/') But 
as the instance of the United States has been adduced, let 
me ask directly, does any one pretend to say that it was, 
mainly or solely, through default of the House of Eepre- 
sentatives, which is based strictly on Representation by 
Population, that the Union fell ? (Hear, hear.) The Senate 
is constructed on quite another basis, — on the basis of State 
equality ; yet every one knows that in the Senate the dis- 
cussion mainly raged since the early days of Mr. Calhoun, 
June, 18 /JO, downwards. It was in the Senate Webster 
encountered Hayne, and Douglass, Benton; and Seward, 
Hunter ; and it was in the Senate, Sumner was stricken 
down by brute force for his assaults on Slavery. (Hear, 
hear.) It was not through the popular branch that the 
core of the constitution was wounded beyond cure, if it has 
been wounded. What then becomes of your argument, 
apropos of nothing ? Oh ! it was because the President's 
Cabinet did not sit in the House, and were not responsible 
directly to the Legislature, that the system broke up ! Well, 
suppose we grant this other assumption, who proposes here 
to lessen the responsibility of our Ministers, or to exclude 
them from this House ? No one proposes anything of the 
kind ; let us not evade the question under consideration, 
by arguing against a proposition which is not before us. 
If we are to profit by American experience, it can only be 
by taking into view all the recent facts of their political 
history, the numerical increase of the slaves, the territorial 
increase of the Southern States, the annexation of Texas, 
the war with Mexico, the conquest of California, that fatal 
success which has brought the trial of sudden riches, hard 
to be borne by man or nation, in its train. Then there were 
other internal reasons besides this sudden overgrowth. 
There was the States Right doctrine of Mr. Calhoun and his 
school, which taught the seductive theory to Southern men 
that the essentials of sovereignty remained with the States, 



188 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

and never were ceded to the Union ; then there was a poli- 
tical pulpit and an agitating clergy, confounding the 
Sabbath with the week and theology with politics ; then 
there was a brilliant but reckless press sneering daily at the 
" Union-savers " — a press before whose arrows of ridicule, 
barbed by wit but feathered by folly, the ancient sentiment 
of veneration for the work of Washington and his colleagues 
fell to the earth. (Hear, hear.) These influences — but 
most of all the numerical increase of the slaves, the unjustly 
acquired spoils of the Spanish- Americans — must all be 
taken into the account when we presume to sit in judgment 
on the events we have lived to witness at Washington ; and 
we should be most careful not to overstate the case against 
popular institutions, which our own resemble in structure 
(though not in administration) quite as nearly as they re- 
semble those of Great Britain. (Hear, hear.) I come 
now, Sir, after these excursions across the line and across 
the ocean, to our own constitutional condition, the imme- 
diate subject of this debate. I intend to vote against the 
consideration of this Bill, as I voted against similar Bills 
and resolutions when introduced by the hon. members for 
Toronto, Lambton, and Yictoria. I never will vote, as I 
never have voted, for the introduction of such a principle 
into our system alone, unqualified, unchecked, unbalanced. 
(Hear, hear.) Hon. gentlemen opposite have again in this 
debate sneered at their own science, or what ought to be 
their own science, constitutional checks, balances, and 
guarantees. Yet I ask them, or any of them, from their 
confident leader downwards, to point me out a single con- 
stitutional statesman or writer, European or American, who 
has ever been able to discuss this subject, or define this 
system, without the employment of such terms. (Hear, 
hear.) I presume no one will deny that Lord Brougham 
may be considered an authority on the British Constitution, 
and Mr. Webster on the American. Well, in what terms 
do these distinguished men speak of their several systems ? 
Mr. Webster, in his celebrated speech in reply to Hayne, 
delivered in the Senate of the United States, in 1850, 
says : — " I admit, Sir, that this Government is a Govern- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAKLIAMENT. 189 

ment of checks and balances ; that is, the House of Repre- 
sentatives is a check on the Senate, and the Senate is a 
check on the House, and the President is a check on both." 
(Hear, hear.) The 2nd chapter of the second volume of 
Lord Brougham's " Political . Philosophy/' entitled "Of 
Balances and Checks/' is devoted to prove that no consti- 
tutional system can exist without these conditions, perfect or 
imperfect. After referring to the constitutions of Athens 
and Borne, he goes on to say that " a much more striking 
exemplification of the doctrine/' of checks and balances, 
"is to be found in the English Constitution." After giving 
some particular recent instances of this description, he pro- 
ceeds to lay down the general rule in words, with which I 
shall trouble the House : — " In all these instances," says 
Lord Brougham, " whether of contending parties or con- 
flicting authorities in the State, the different forces combine 
to produce the result, the movement of the machine. Its 
course is in the direction neither of the one force nor of 
the other, but in a direction between those which either 
would separately have made it take. As a body on which 
two forces operate at the same time, in different but not in 
opposite directions, moves in the diagonal between the 
two directions, so does the Legislature or the Government 
of a country take the middle course between the two which 
the different authorities or influences would make it take if 
left to itself. It will depend upon the proportion of the 
forces to each other t whether the direction taken shall in- 
cline more to the one than to the other ; but this affects not 
the argument, the course is affected by each, and the in- 
fluence of each prevails as a check on the other" I dare to 
quote Mr. Webster even against so profound a sage as the 
hon. member for Arthabaska (laughter) ; I venture to quote 
Lord Brougham against the Hon. Attorney-General. 
(Laughter.) And by-and-by, Sir, I may have to quote 
Archdeacon Paley against the hon. and rev. member for 
South Lanark (laughter), and Mr. Justice Blackstone 
against the hon. gentleman who has just sat down. 
(Laughter.) In one respect it is consistent enough in the 
hon. gentleman to sneer at "checks" and "balances," in 



190 BRITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

the face of all constitutional authority, because their own 
policy has never been regulated by any such constitutional 
rules or forces. They have been instrumental as principals 
or assistants in sweeping away 28 of the 62 clauses of the 
Act of Union, and yet they, plead the remaining fragment 
as an inviolable compact. They have left our present divi- 
sion of powers between the two Houses, and the internal 
organisation of each House, at the haphazard of a single 
vote — an absolute majority of one. (Hear, hear.) 

Hon. Mr. Cauchon — No, no ! 

Mr. McGee — If the hon. gentleman consults the Sta- 
tutes he will find it as I say. — They created an elective 
Legislative Council, and they have never till this day defined 
its functions, so that no one either in this House or in the 
other can describe its proper place in the present con- 
trivance, which serves us instead of a constitution. Have 
they not argued here last night, and sealed their arguments 
with their votes, that it is not necessary for an adviser of 
the Crown to possess the confidence of the people ? (Hear, 
hear.) I can well understand why persons capable of such 
public conduct should find checks full of painful restraint, 
balances irksome in operation, and guarantees impossible of 
observance. When I advocate a more measured distinction 
of the powers of the Government, I advocate it not for 
them but for the peace of the country, the unity of all its 
inhabitants, and for the direction and protection of those 
who may be the future rulers of the Province. (Hear, 
hear.) Though I intend, Mr. Speaker, to vote against 
the introduction of the Bill, I do not intend to meet its 
many able and respectable advocates on this side of the 
House and on the other with a flat denial, still less with 
odious comparisons and irritating taunts, i" concede to 
them frankly that constitutional changes are necessary } and 
must come sooner or later. But I go further ; I believe 
that such changes should be made with a view to per- 
manence, and should embrace simultaneously the division 
of powers between this House and the other, the limits of 
the Executive ; the power, and real responsibility of 
Ministers, and the recognition of some judicial tribunal as 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 191 

the final interpreter of our constitutional compact or 
fundamental law. I will endeavour to exhibit my meaning, 
as briefly as possible, under the several heads of the 
Executive, the Upper House, Ministerial Responsibility, 
the Composition of this House, and the function of Pinal 
Interpreter, under such a reformed constitution as I am 
prepared to discuss and to help forward, in common with 
all who are convinced of its necessity, whether they come 
from Upper or Lower Canada. Before I go into this 
detail, Mr. Speaker, it may not be amiss to say another 
word or two on the general subject, the division of powers 
and the system of checks, which Dr. Paley calls " the first 
maxim of a free State," and which Blackstone calls "a 
main preservative of the public liberty." — The same may 
be said to be the all but unanimous verdict of all the 
authors whose works are of authority on the subject of 
government; in fact, this doctrine of the distribution of 
powers is as cardinal with constitutional writers as the 
doctrine of the division of labour is with the economists. 
(Hear, hear.) To begin at the head. Are the duties and 
powers of the Executive in any of these North American 
colonies — or, for our present purposes, speaking only of 
ourselves — as well settled, as well understood, as indis- 
putable, as the duties of the Sovereign are in England ? — 
Has not every Governor who has been here, since the 
establishment of Responsible Government, been accused of 
violating that system ? (Hear, hear.) Has not every re- 
presentative of the Crown, during those twenty years, been 
accused of transgressing his limits, and been hooted in the 
streets of the seat of Government ? Has not the remedy of 
electing our own Governors been advocated by many influ- 
ential persons ? Has not a " written constitution " been 
thought by others the only protection against the abuses 
alleged against the representatives of the Crown in Canada ? 
(Hear, hear.) Have there not been hints and murmurs 
about a renewal of the scenes of 1837-38? Whence the 
reason ? Have all our Governors been to blame, or has not 
the indefinite nature of their powers been a main cause of all 
this unpopularity ? The truth seems to me to be that the 



192 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

Governors' powers were settled by the Act of Union, and 
unsettled by Mr. Baldwin's subsequent resolutions laying 
down the doctrine of the Executive Council's responsibility 
to this Chamber. Nothing can show more clearly the 
responsibility of the Governor as an Imperial office to the 
Crown, and that of his Provincial advisers to this House, 
than the two conflicting despatches addressed on those sub- 
jects to Lord Sydenham by Lord John Russell, in October, 
1839. (Hear.) Both despatches may be considered hostile to 
the theory of Responsible Government, though in very different 
degrees, and it is equally certain from Lord Sydenham's 
memoirs and letters, that the Act of Union was framed in 
the same spirit of hostility. Your first innovation that the 
Act was to make the Governor subject, in the selection of 
this Council, to the majority of this House, — a salutary 
innovation, I admit, but still no part of the fundamental 
law; affirmed only by a resolution of this House, and 
which a strong man, a vain man, or an irritable man, 
holding the office, might and could evade by shuffling 
expedients, such as refusing one party a dissolution and 
granting it to another, or by sanctioning such an evasion 
of the independence of Parliament Act as was sanctioned 
at Toronto, in July, 1858. Another innovation on the 
Governor's powers I have already alluded to, when you 
struck him out of the composition of the Court of Appeals, 
and left him no remnant of judicial authority, except the 
pardoning power may be so considered. I do not com- 
plain that our chief rulers appear on closer examination, 
that they have still quite enough for the efficiency of their 
office ; I do not complain that their term of office is not 
fixed; but I do think it would be equally desirable for the 
future incumbents of that high office, as well as for their 
councillors and the people of this country, that these powers 
of the Executive should be, by common consent, defined 
and established, so that the riotous discontents of the past 
might never again disgrace our cities or our records. 
(Hear, hear.) Eor it seems to me that if you wish to give 
the Sovereign's representative here a chance to be as 
popular as the Sovereign's self in England, give his autho- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 193 

rity its full legitimate scope within the constitution ; let 
him know his place ; let us know it ; let the people know it, 
and then the experiments of the Metcalfs and the Elgins on 
Canadian endurance, and the deplorable events they led to, 
will be impossible of repetition in the future. — (Cries of 
hear.) I come now, Sir, to the composition of the Upper 
House, and I repeat my former question ; can any one in 
this chamber or in that, tell me what the powers of our 
Senate are? Can they vote confidence or want of con- 
fidence in the Ministry of the day ? Can they alter or 
originate a money bill? We vote the people's taxes, 
because, on the British maxim, we come from the people — 
because, as the hon. member for Arthabaska said the other 
night — "the Commons are on the floor of this House." 
But do they not also come from the people ? Are they, 
either as persons or as an assembly, a privileged order? 
The only privileges 1 know appertaining to them is, that 
they are not subject to dissolution before their time, as we 
are. But does this indissolubility alone constitute them 
an effective check on this House ? Does it establish any 
other function in them, than the faculty of inertia ? Is it 
anything better in itself, than a premium for indifference — 
than a bonus on indolence ? Men of active mind going 
into that Chamber may busy themselves in amateur legisla- 
tion for a session or two, but when they find they have no 
real power, either with the Executive or with this House, 
they will soon grow weary, 

Of dropping buckets into empty wells, 



And growing old in drawing nothing up." 

Sir, I would give the Upper House real importance by 
giving it active duties; I would have it constituted on a 
basis as unlike ours as possible ; I would have it the repre- 
sentative of age, property, and all our conservative in- 
fluence; and 1 would besides make it the Court of Im- 
peachment, before which all high crimes against the 
Constitution should be tried. (Hear, hear.) And this 
mention of the word impeachment brings me, Mr. Speaker, 



194 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION 

to another matter — oar present notions of ministerial re- 
sponsibility to the people. We hear commonly a great 
deal of ministerial responsibility to the people, that is, to 
this House; that a majority can always turn them out of 
office, and so forth. 

Attorney-General Macdonald — Is it not so ? 

Mr. McGee — Practically, where has been the proof of 
such vaunted responsibility ? (Hear, hear.) Give a ministry 
the power of augmenting the public debt at discretion, and 
obtaining by the lavish expenditure of the people's money 
a corrupt majority in this House, and they may defy, and 
have defied, public opinion from one general election till 
another ! Give them the power of retaining their seats by 
a narrow majority, made up wholly of their own votes, and 
where is the responsibility ? We saw an instance of it last 
night. Convict one or all of them of a corrupt use of their 
position as advisers of the Crown — they resign, and where 
is the responsibility ? Oh ! true, you may cite them before 
a court of justice; you or I, or any private citizen may. 
That was the retort to the charges concerning the Sarnia 
land sale ; that was the course taken by Mr. McDonnell, a 
citizen of Toronto, after the double shuffle. But I main- 
tain that, according to all constitutional precedent, an 
offence against the State ought to be prosecuted by and in 
behalf of the State ; that the high criminals ought to be 
tried before one of the bodies of the magistracy, who par- 
take both of legislative, and in that respect, of judicial 
functions; and i go farther, and assert that there never 
has been a salutary form of constitution which did not 
provide for the public punishment, on behalf of the State, 
of corrupt ministers and other executive officers. In Eng- 
land not only the ordinary advisers of the Crown are subject 
to such impeachment, but the Lord Chancellor may be im- 
peached for attaching the great seal to an ignominious 
treaty; an Admiral may be impeached for neglecting the 
defence of the narrow seas ; an Ambassador for having 
betrayed his trust; a Judge for receiving a bribe, or a 
Privy Councillor for propounding pernicious advice to his 
Sovereign. No portion of their history is better known to 






SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAELIAMENT. 195 

English politicians than their " State Trials/' and though 
the comparative calm of recent times has called for few 
impeachments, they know well that the block and the 
headsman's axe have not been removed from the ramparts 
of the Constitution. Those who are for ever asserting that 
our system is a transcript of the British ought to know 
that, in this important particular, the copy has not been 
truly made; that this House cannot arraign, nor the other 
House hear, nor the Judges act as assessors, nor the 
Governor- General preside at the trial of any .guilty minister 
or peccant judge in this province ; that in office you cannot 
reach them ; that out of office you cannot pursue them ; 
that we stand before the world in the anomalous position 
of having provided ample penalties for every breach of 
trust which is a public wrong, except the very highest of 
all, for which we have no penalty and no tribunal. (Hear, 
hear.) The thief who puts his hand into his master's till 
is rightly punished; but the thief who thrusts his arm to 
the elbow into the public Treasury " resigns/' to re-appear, 
after a season, on the public stage, or to enjoy unmolested 
his ease and dignity. (Hear, hear.) Sir — and I must 
beg the forbearance of the House a little longer, while I 
discuss the constitution of this House — I have always been 
of opinion — in Ireland, in the United States, in Canada — 
that the popular branch of every legislative body should 
fully represent the numbers of the population. (Hear, 
hear.) I for one am not frightened at the bugbear of 
universal suffrage, though I am well content with our pre- 
sent standard, which may be termed universal suffrage for 
married men. If the population of Upper Canada should 
be shown by the census to be 250,000 more than that of 
Lower Canada, and notwithstanding all the arrangements 
made under various pressures and pretexts at " the Union/' 
these quarter of a million out of two millions and a half — 
one-tenth of our total numbers — demand an increased re- 
presentation on this floor, in my humble opinion the way 
to meet such a demand is not by a flat denial, but by an 
alternative proposition, to which both sections may in the 
end be reconciled. Can any such proposition be made by 

o 2 



196 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

Lower Canada? (Hear.) That is the great question which 
the bill before the House calls on us to revolve within our- 
selves. The Premier says "No," and menaces us with a 
w r ar of race. The hon. member for Montmorenci refuses 
even to debate it — moves "the six months' hoist." My 
hon. friends from Montreal and Iberville, and I hope I 
may add my hon. friend from St. Hyacinthe, do not despair 
of a remedy ; they are at all events quite willing to hear 
other opinions and to offer their own when the question 
comes up in a practical shape. I agree with those who 
hold that we can find an alternative proposition other than 
by repealing the Union, which would be a release but no 
remedy. And I will put a supposititious case to those hon. 
gentlemen who deny the possibility of establishing any 
efficient checks against oppression in our circumstances. 
It is this: — Suppose you had guarantees for the fullest 
religious and civil freedom in your fundamental law, framed 
by yourselves, and ratified by Her Majesty for herself and 
her successors ! Suppose you had a guarantee in the com- 
position of the Upper House; suppose you had a power of 
final interpretation in cases of doubt arising under the 
constitution, composed of an equal number of the judges 
of Upper and Lower Canada; would all these guarantees, 
involving the good faith of the Sovereign and of her repre- 
sentative, the good faith of the Upper House, and the high 
Judiciary,' — would all these content you ? 
Hon. Mr. Cauchon — No. 

Mr. McGee — I believe there is but one voice in this 
House says "No." Such guarantees could be had both 
from England and from Upper Canada ; the interests of 
the Empire, the interests of the public creditor, the interests 
of Upper Canada herself, would all be favourable to such a 
settlement, and if Lower Canada is wise in season she will 
neither despise such terms nor insult those who respectfully 
submit them for her consideration. To those who threaten 
a war of race, I say solemnly — Beware ! (Hear, hear.) We 
have pretty well extinguished the war of creeds, and we are 
not likely to permit ourselves, I hope, to be embattled, like 
the Knights of Rhodes, by languages and nationalities. 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 197 

What must we think of the sanity, not to say the wisdom, 
of any minister who could utter such a menace against the 
English-speaking population, two-thirds of the whole people 
of this dependency of England ? That English-speaking 
population is a slow match, as hard to kindle as to extin- 
guish, and to those who address it in the language of 
menace, I say again — Beware ! (Hear, hear.) Far better 
and worthier of the hon. gentleman's position would it be 
to avail himself of his majority to propose an alternative to 
the people of Upper Canada than to force them into one 
united phalanx, as his devoted follower for the last seven 
years, the member for Durham, told him the other night 
he would do. "A time of peace is the time for reforms," 
says a great political authority, and it will be far easier to 
adjust our mutual difficulties now, than to let the old con- 
stitution run on into downright political bankruptcy. Does 
the hon. gentleman suppose that, by postponing the day of 
reckoning, he can diminish the demands on either side, or 
lessen the pangs of concession on either ? Is his best pre* 
parative for a friendly settlement to be found in a long 
cherished previous hostility ? Will his own usefulness as 
a pacificator be improved by his haughty tone in the pre- 
sent debate ? — Ear from it. (Hear, hear.) He may win 
the applause of the unthinking; he may strengthen him- 
self by such language with a section or a faction, but he 
never can become, by indulging in that spirit, a statesman 
for the whole country. (Cheers.) Another word only I 
will add — to every man who values our provincial union, 
peace, and prosperity — and that is, that there is no time 
like the present in which to enter on the great, good work 
of constitutional amendment. To those who would attract 
new strength from abroad; to those who would contrast 
our stability with America's agitation ; to those who desire 
the principles of constitutional monarchy to have a fair 
trial in this new field; to those cooler spirits who look 
beyond the hour, and know a duty in the distance as well 
as when they can touch it with their right hands, — to all 
and every one of these classes I say use your time, and 
correct by the high light of experience the errors and 



198 BRITISH- AMEEICAN UNION. 

aberrations of your constitution. Let such as have faith 
in a war of creeds, let such as have faith in a war of races, 
take their stand — the sooner the better; but let all just 
men who have seen and felt the derangement of our whole 
existing system, who have thought and compared thoughts 
as to the remedies to be applied; let them be but true to 
themselves and their convictions, and I am persuaded a 
solution will yet be found satisfactory to all reasonable men 
both in Upper and Lower Canada. (Loud cheers.) 



CANADIAN DEFENCES. 

House of Assembly, Quebec, March 27th, 1862. A Dutiful Address 

IN REPLY TO THE SPEECH FROM THE THRONE HAVING BEEN MOVED. 

Mr. McGee addressed Mr. Speaker as follows : — A 
speech from the Throne may be open to criticism for what 
it omits, as well as for what it contains, and I cannot, for 
ray own part, avoid saying that I think the gratifying 
results of the late decennial Census, and the subject of 
emigration and the settlement of the country, ought to 
have been referred to. The Census is an event of rare 
occurrence ; it is an act of the highest importance ; its 
results stated in the Royal Speech would have circulated 
farther and with higher authenticity than when put forward 
in any other manner. I think, therefore, it should have 
been referred to, and that the subject of Emigration was 
also, just at this period, of such importance as not to have 
been omitted. The leading English journal lately uttered 
a sentiment on this head with which I entirely concur, 
when it said that if our statesmen were worthy of their 
position, "America's difficulty might be made Canada's 
opportunity." No other subject has occupied a larger 
space in the provincial press — the press of all parties — than 
this of emigration, and the hands of our provincial agents 
abroad would have been much strengthened by such an 
authority. We have only to hope that during the session 
it may command more attention in this House than it has 
done from the framers of the Speech from the Throne. 
(Hear, hear.) Of the first sentences, Mr. Speaker — I 
mean the very proper reference to the late Prince Consort 
in the Speech — there has not .been, and there could not be, 
any difference of opinion in this House. All parties are 



200 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

equally agreed in Canada, that the world has lost a finished 
man in the Prince Consort — a man whose memory is less 
to be honoured for his good fortune and alliances than for 
his provident use of his time, the elevation of his tastes, 
and the conspicuous example of his private life. To those 
sentences we all cordially subscribe, and we are all indebted 
to His Excellency for having given us an opportunity of 
joining with him in the just and feeling tribute he has paid 
to the character of the deceased Prince. Immediately 
following this allusion to Prince Albert there is a paragraph 
on which I propose, Mr. Speaker, to make some observa- 
tions to the House, coupling it, however, with the last 
paragraph specially addressed to this House — I mean that 
concerning our Colonial defences. The first mentioned 
paragraph alludes to Her Majesty's gracious recognition of 
the attachment exhibited by all classes in this Province, in 
the late emergency,"* towards the mother country, and I 
feel that it is no forced march to take up in connection 
with that passage the relative one of how far this Province 
ought to look to the metropolitan power for its external 
defence, or for any species of military protection whatever. 
(Hear, hear.) I must say, Sir, with all deference, but with 
all emphasis, that we in Canada cannot but think that the 
time chosen by the anti-Colonial party in England for the 
declaration of their principles, exceedingly ill chosen, and 
the manner of some among them exceedingly injurious to 
Canadian feeling. If they were really the people of Eng- 
land — if they were likely to direct at any future day the 
Government of England, — it would be incumbent on us 
here, without the loss of a single day, to look around us, in 
search of some new state of political existence. What, 
Sir ! when all ranks and classes with us have been vieing 
with each other as to who should do most to give volunteer 
defenders to the country, was this a time to read us an 
economical lecture on the burthensome nature of our 
allegiance to the Empire? Was this a time to have it 
proclaimed in Washington by the authority of the Imperial 

i 

* The affair of the Trent. 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAELIAMENT. 201 

Parliament, that that supreme assembly considered us too 
dear a bargain at 2,000,000^. a-year. (Hear, hear.) It is 
undeniable, I suppose, Mr. Speaker, that we are indebted 
for this rebuff, and the Americans for this gratification, to 
that school of economists who bring every subject of Go- 
vernment to the infallible test of pounds, shillings, and 
pence. With that school it is, perhaps, presumptuous to 
reason, but this I venture to assert, that if their doctrine of 
putting every Imperial relation in the scales of a cash 
balance should ever prevail, the British Empire will be near 
its end, not only in North America, but in the British 
Islands. (Hear, hear.) These gentlemen of England 
argue that this country is no commercial benefit to England, 
because it is of no apparent profit to her. But supposing 
even this argument to be unanswerably true — though I am 
far from allowing it to be so — are there no relations any 
longer profitable or desirable between the mother country 
and her colonies but commercial relations ? Are there no 
political ties ? Are there no military advantages as well as 
disadvantages attached to colonies ? I am not competent 
to judge whether the military conveniences or inconveniences 
of holding Canada as a base of North American operations 
may preponderate in the minds of British military men, 
but it is clear so far that they have not pronounced against 
retaining the military power on our soil. It is so far an 
outcry of civilians and politicians, and it may therefore be 
answered by other civilians. Now it seems to me, Sir, that 
both in England and with us much confusion arises from 
substituting England, or "the mother country," for the 
Empire at large, in certain stages of the argument, and 
dropping that substitution at other stages. Thus we hear 
people talk of the Empire and the Colonies, as if the 
Colonies were something apart, exclusive, external to Em- 
pire. This is an evident fallacy ; we, here in Quebec, are 
at this moment as strictly an Imperial city as London or 
Dublin. Her Majesty's subject in Windsor, Canada West, 
stands as near to Her Majesty, politically, as Her Majesty's 
subject in Windsor, County of Berkshire. (Cheers.) The 
reciprocal duties of subject and Sovereign are not attenuated 



202 BEITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

by distance, but, on the contrary, are oftener enhanced, 
since they are cherished against the relaxing influence of 
such distance. Those who talk, therefore, of it being un- 
reasonable to expect the Empire to defend Canada, forget 
that Canada is itself the Empire in North America. The 
Empire, commonly called British, is an Asiatic Empire in 
virtue of India, an Australian Empire in virtue of Aus- 
tralia, an African Empire in virtue of the Cape and other 
possessions ; and it is an American Empire still, in virtue 
of our sister Provinces and ourselves. Is it the will and 
wish of the English in England to have no longer fellow- 
subjects in North America? Eor it must come to that 
— whenever the Empire in Canada is not to be defended by 
all the vigilance and all the resources of the entire Empire, 
whenever its existence comes to be considered in the 
metropolis as something separate and apart from their own 
existence. If that undesirable change should come to pass, 
future British Ministers at Washington will be much less 
harassed with work than Lord Lyons, because they will be 
much less influential ; they will have fewer cares, but they 
will also have a lower sphere of action. Why are Her 
Majesty's representatives on the Potomac facile princeps 
of all the diplomatic body ? Why is the British Minister, 
next to the President, the second power at Washington ? 
Not alone because of England's greatness proper to herself, 
but because he alone represents a North American power — 
if we except the Russian representatives of the Czar's 
provinces in the North Pacific, which certainly give a pro- 
portionate influence to Russia. If Lord Lyons could re- 
view Mr. Seward, with his hand resting on the breach of 
the Armstrong gun that thrills this whole region from the 
Citadel, he could not more visibly and personally have 
Canada and Quebec at his back than he has already in the 
mind's eye of the statesman of the Federal Union. (Cheers.) 
No, Mr. Speaker ; directly the commerce of Canada may no 
longer be an object to the manufacturers, but indirectly, 
and politically, every English relation with every part of 
America must already depend materially on the fact, 
whether or not the Crown of England is still one of the 






SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAELIAMENT. 203 

largest proprietors on this continent. I object, therefore, 
not only to the confused way in which the terms Empire 
and Colony are bandied about, but I also object to the time 
chosen by the anti-colonial party in England for raising 
the question of what we are worth to the rest of the 
Empire. And I hope, Sir, that from every side of this 
House, from every person of influence within these walls, 
ministerialist as well as oppositionist, that one unanimous 
protest will go forth in this discussion against the time 
chosen by the anti-colonial party in England, for raising 
such an issue with Canada. (Hear, hear.) "With a new 
state of facts all over North America — with half a million 
men under arms, in our near neighbourhood ; with evidence 
before us of the employment of secret agents of the United 
States in Canada — was this a time to cast a damper upon 
the ardour of Colonial loyalty, and to give a new hope 
of spoliation to our irritated neighbours ? Mr. Speaker, a 
former residence of some years in the United States has given 
me, I presume to say, some insight into the American cha- 
racter, and consulting that knowledge I do not hesitate to 
declare that in my opinion we are not yet finally done with 
the American difficulty. Eormerly you had to do with the 
example and opinions of their democracy, but let Canadians 
never forget for one hour, that they have now to do with 
democracy armed and insolent — with democracy in square 
and column, with a sword by its side and a bitter humilia- 
tion in its heart. (Hear, hear.) It is possible, I wish I 
could say it is probable, that the evil may cure itself 
through internal purgation; but Canadian vigilance must 
sleep no more except upon its arms. We have burst into a 
new era — the halcyon has fled to other climes and latitudes 
— the storm and peril are daily visible in our horizon. I 
have no fears for Canada, in the presence even of such a 
phenomenon as a victorious democratic army, for I believe, 
after all, the other and elder members of the Empire will 
stand cordially by us in our day of danger. But they 
must be prepared to do so, in some fair proportion to their 
relative strength and wealth as compared with ours, arid in 
proportion to the strength and wealth of the enemy opposed 



204 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

to us. This is no Cape Colony — this is no Canterbury- 
settlement — and our American neighbours are neither 
Maoris nor Caffres. It is not against semi-savages, armed 
only with lances or small arms, that we must keep our 
frontier, and the frontier of the Empire, but against a people 
as well armed, as enterprising, and ten times as numerous 
as ourselves. I admit we must do our share — willingly, 
cheerfully, and to the utmost extent of our young resources ; 
but I say still, that our share must be proportionate to that 
of the Empire. (Hear, hear.) To ask us to be the prin- 
cipals in our own defence — in our present stage of develop- 
ment — with our six or seven inhabitants to the square mile 
— with our three against twenty-five millions — is to ask a 
downright impossibility. The proportion we should bear 
to the Empire may, perhaps, be indicated by our mutual 
symbols of the Lion and the Beaver. There is great dis- 
parity between those creatures ; the beaver, it is true, can 
work in land and water, and the beaver has worked wonders 
in the wilderness. But the lion must bear the lion's share; 
if he would continue lord of the forest he must be some- 
times felt — at least his formidable points must be visible to 
the eye of every American emissary. To drop all metaphor, 
Mr. Speaker, and speaking only for myself, I declare my 
perfect readiness to entertain any proper project for putting 
our Canadian Militia on a thoroughly effective footing, as 
suggested in His Excellency's speech, but I cannot for a 
moment entertain — and I do not believe any party in this 
House or country can entertain — the injurious proposition 
lately affirmed by the House of Commons, which, as 
amended by Mr. Baxter, clearly intimates that we are here- 
after to rely invariably and mainly on ourselves, and only 
incidentally on the rest of the Empire for the common 
defence. (Hear, hear.) On this point I trust the whole 
House can be unanimous as one man. Not to disturb that 
unanimity in any quarter I pass over some other topics of 
the Speech at present. It seems to me we ought to have 
an early and emphatic expression of opinion on this para- 
mount question of colonial defence, and I would not have 
troubled the House at all to-day but from a strong sense of 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 205 

what is due to my own constituents, and the country at 
large. (Cheers.) In the course of the debate there are 
other topics to which I should wish to speak, but just at 
present they all dwindle into insignificance in comparison 
with this, on which I have endeavoured to lay my own 
views respectfully before the House and the country. 
(Loud cheers.)* 

* As the above speech is but one of a series on the subject, the only 
record of which, during the Session of 1863, is found in the condensed 
summary of the Quebec Morning Chronicle, it is proper to add the follow- 
ing additional remarks, from another point of view, made in the debate of 
the 20th August, 1863. "He (Mr. McGee) went on to show, from actual 
facts, the great danger which might at any moment come upon the country 
from an aggressive movement on the part of the Northern States. He 
reminded the House that he, for one, was no enemy of the North ; that, on 
the contrary, he was friendly towards the North in their struggle with the 
South, inasmuch as he believed the Washington Government to be the 
legitimate Government of the country ; but there was no use in endeavouring 
to hide from ourselves the fact that there was a strongly hostile feeling in 
the minds of a portion of the American people towards everything British 
and everything Canadian. He had no doubt, nay, more, he was certain 
that those who were at the head of affairs in the United States were 
desirous of avoiding a war with England, and fully realised the dreadful 
consequences which such a contest would involve ; but it should not be 
forgotten that political demagogues might, in a moment of political excite- 
ment, at a Presidential election for instance, bring about a state of things 
which would plunge us into an armed contest. It was only necessary, as 
a proof of this kind of danger, to refer to the case of the Trent, and look at 
the public ovations which were accorded to Commodore Wilks, who was 
lionised and feted, merely because he had fired a shot across the bows of a 
British vessel : and there was no saying when some other boisterous blue- 
jacket might not, by a similar act, put an end to the peaceful relations at 
present existing between England and America. Mr. McGee then referred 
to the extensive armament going on along the American side of our fron- 
tier — as for instance the erection of a vast fort and barracks near Rouse's 
Point, the strengthening of the works at Niagara, and the fort at Mackinaw ; 
and quoted the speeches and state papers of the late Mr. Webster and other 
leading American statesmen to show that the invasion of Canada by way of 
Rouse's Point was a favourite scheme with many of their leading public 
men ; and that the absorption of the whole continent by the American 
Republic was the darling object of their ruling public. In conclusion, Mr. 
McGee dwelt on the willingness which the mother-country had shown, in 
the hour of danger, to defend her British North American possessions. But 
while it was well known that England would spend her last man and her 
last shilling in defence of her Colonies, if the latter showed that they were 
really desirous of maintaining the connection, — at the same time it was 
incumbent upon Canadians to provide to the fullest extent of their means 
for their own protection against insult and aggression." 



REPRESENTATION BY POPULATION. 

House of Assembly, Quebec, April 1st, 1862. 

Mr. McGee': — Whenever there was a hair to split the 
hon. member (Mr. Dunkin) never failed to have his razor 
at hand. (Laughter.) But such was not the spirit in 
which a grave reality like this ought to be dealt with, and 
any man who could descend to sophistry in such circum- 
stances, was wholly misplaced in this House. (Hear, hear.) 
All that he had ever read or heard of state-craft went to 
show that when a question had taken strong hold on a 
large population, that when it had become one of the poli- 
tical realities, it was no longer met with a flat negative, 
but with an alternative proposition. By a reasonable 
alternative one part of a party, the moderate part, was cer- 
tain to be satisfied, and so the combination was at an end. 
(Hear, hear.) Such an alternative would not satisfy 
extremists, but it would take from them the alliance of 
those who gave their extreme demands weight. It could 
not be pretended any longer, with the two votes of this 
week on record, that the demand for this change came 
from any one side of the House, or from mere agitators, 
when they had around them such advocates of it as the 
member for Welland (Mr. Street), the member for West 
Brant (Mr. Ryerson), and the able lawyers who had spoken 
and voted for it (the Messrs. Cameron). (Hear, hear.) 
As a member for Montreal, a neutral ground, and a cosmo- 
politan community if there was one in the Province, he 
(Mr. McGee) appealed to his honourable friend (Mr. Rose), 
as a joint representative of that city, to be true to the 
growing public opinion of that great city, which was in 
favour of an amicable, rational settlement of this question. 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 207 

It was not considered an unreasonable principle in 
Montreal, that numbers should be proportionately repre- 
sented ; and he hoped, now his honourable friend was un- 
trammeled by office, he would be true to his better 
instincts, and vote for this reasonable amendment. (Hear, 
hear.) If the 285,000 excess in Upper Canada were 
grouped in two or three great cities, the size of Montreal or 
Quebec, but situated on Lake Erie or Lake Huron, could 
they remain unrepresented in that House? (Hear, hear.) 
Now the rural population were as valuable to provinces as 
the urban population — the country made the town — they 
filled the Treasury, and should be heard where they were 
taxed. (Hear.) And heard they might be assured they 
would be, and the longer they resisted the minimwn of 
concession, the higher would rise the 7naximum of demand. 
(Cheers.) He much mistook the character of the 90,000 
people of Huron and Bruce, for example, if they were con- 
tent to have but one representative, while eight Lower 
Canada counties, having in the aggregate only 90,000 
inhabitants, had eight members on the floor of that House. 
(Hear, hear.) Nor was the inequality confined to con- 
trasts between Upper and Lower Canada. The counties of 
Middlesex, Oxford, and Ontario, with little over 40,000 
inhabitants, had two members each, while Huron and 
Bruce, with twice the number, had but half the represen- 
tation ! It may be asked where will concession stop if we 
once disturb the existing limitation? To that he would 
answer that concession could only stop with our growth 
and development, and that every new community sufficiently 
numerous should have a representative of its own. The 
hon. member who had last sat down, spoke of England's 
stability. Why, Sir, what folly this is ! We are, as to 
England, in the Heptarchy stage of our existence. (Hear, 
hear.) We learned no such sentiment about immutability 
from the honourable gentleman for Montreal East when the 
knife was drawn through the map of Montreal in order to 
divide the liberal interest of that city. When in twenty- 
four hours a petition came down, signed by 3,000 citizens 
of Montreal, against that measure, there was no such pro- 



208 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

test on the ground of stability then. (Hear, hear.) Huron 
and Bruce would not be put off by the plea of stability. 
But he might be asked what guarantee will you give to 
Lower Canada if new eastern counties come to knock at our 
doors year after year? (Hear, hear.) His answer was, 
Lower Canada had her Imperial guarantee — she had her 
guarantee of numbers, her own brave blood, and the free- 
man's final guarantee — the right to carry arms. (Hear, 
hear.) But in addition there was another guarantee he 
would allude to — he would say to the gentlemen of Lower 
Canada — settle up your country ! If the same pains had 
been taken the last ten years to settle Lower Canada, 
that had been taken in Upper Canada, the disparity of 
representation would be now on the other side. (Hear, 
hear.) He must speak plainly, but not disrespectfully, 
when he said that such pains had not been taken. The 
British and German emigration was allowed to pass through 
Lower Canada as if there was no habitable land either to 
their right hand or to their left. Now, they had Sir 
William Logan's opinion, and the Hon. Mr. Cauchon's 
official report of 1856, that there was more habitable land 
now unsettled in Lower than in Upper Canada. (Hear, 
hear.) [Mr. McGee here read a quotation from Hon. Mr. 
Cauchon's Report of 1856, showing that there was room 
enough in the St. Maurice region for eleven millions of 
people.] Yet nothing had been done to open up that 
country, and the Three Rivers Inquirer of the 25th instant 
stated, that it was said to be, because "the Hon. Mr. 
Turcotte was opposed to the settlement of old country 
emigrants, or the appointment of an agent at Three Rivers." 
(Hear, hear.) But the fact was undoubted — the emigrant 
was not retained in this section of the country. (Hear, 
hear.) 

Hon. Mr. Sicotte. — Where will we go to ? 

Mr. McGee. — There is room enough for all. (Cheers.) 
The population of this country will count by millions before 
its frontiers give way from repletion. (Cheers.) And what 
has been the consequence of squandering the Colonisation 
lund of Lower Canada on parish improvements? The 






SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 209 

obstacles that kept out the foreigner kept out the native, 
and sent the surplus Canadians of the old parishes across 
the line. This was the penalty of obstruction and exclu- 
siveness — what would have served the stranger would have 
preserved the son of the soil — but both suffered together by 
this stolid indifference to the settlement of Lower Canada. 
Were they keeping the St. Lawrence for a preserve for 
their great-grandchildren in the 20th century? Well, the 
rest of the Province would not stand still on that account, 
and if they would not march, they would be left behind-— . 
that was certain. (Cheers.) In no sectional spirit — as a 
Provincial man — as a Canadian representative — who felt 
bound to utter the vital truth which he held, he abjured 
the French Canadian statesman who now wielded the 
destiny of this land, to surround its admirable institutions 
with more people, of whatever tongue or origin. (Cheers.) 
They could bear inspection — they would inspire love and 
reverence : all that they needed to be honoured and loved, 
was to be known. Upper and Lower Canada differed in 
their views of Christian duty, as they did in other views, 
but on nearer examination they would find much to admire 
each in the other. Unless lion, gentlemen opposite were 
in secret desirous of a dissolution of the Union, pure et 
simple, he begged them to meet the Upper Canadians with 
an alternative proposition, instead of an arbitrary negative, 
and not to neglect the last and best of guarantees against 
western preponderance — to settle up their own section of 
the country. (Cheers.) 



EMIGRATION AND COLONISATION. 

House op Assembly, April 25th, 1862. 

The House resumed the adjourned debate on Mr. 
McGee's motion of the 8th instant, " That a Select Com- 
mittee be appointed to take into consideration the subjects 
of Immigration and Colonisation, especially with reference 
to the Spring Immigration of the present year; with power 
to send for persons and papers, and to report from time to 
time/' 

Mr. McGee, after a few introductory remarks, said : — 
In moving for this Committee, Mr. Speaker, I might move 
on the ground that it is not only called for in itself, but that 
as the Province expends large sums annually to arrive at 
a knowledge of its own resources, this Committee is the 
natural corollary of that expenditure. Turning over the 
public accounts, yesterday placed on the table, I find the 
following principal items of expenditure for what we may 
call, in general terms, exploring or exhibiting the resources 
of the Province — 



Geological Survey (1861) . 
Bureau of Agriculture, salaries 

,, Contingencies . 

Roads and Bridges (C.E.) . 
Improvement Fund (C.W.) 
Colonisation Roads (C.W.) . 

,, (C.E.) 
Crown Lands Surveys (West) 

(East) . 
Colonisation Road Agents (West) 
(East*) . 
Inspection of Agencies (West) 
„ „ (East) . 



&c. 



$20,315 00 


8,091 00 


6,805 00 


57,845 00 


17,398 00 


54,000 00 


52,424 00 


75,444 00 


41,969 00 


11,392 00 


2,976 00 


3,514 00 



Included in the item of "Roads and Bridges," C.E. 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 211 

Agricultural Societies (West) $53,894 00 

„ ,, (East) 48,725 00 

Emigration service, Inland and Foreign Agencies, &c, 

as per page 112, Public Accounts . . . 45,329 00 

Emigration Commission 400 00 



Total ..:.... $501,612 00 

Thus, we see, that $500,000 per annum may be said to 
be the present annual expenditure of the Province on the 
various branches of administration which fall directly 
within the scope of this Committee's inquiry. This sum, 
$500,000, is about four per cent, on the total revenues of 
the Province, and whether four per cent, be a sufficient 
proportion for these branches of the public service I am 
not now going to discuss ; in my own opinion, ten per 
cent, of the revenue would not be an excessive expendi- 
ture on the work of increasing the population and decreas- 
ing the wilderness ; but I content myself with pointing out 
that we spend $500,000 a-year on geologists, surveyors, 
agents (inland and foreign), roads and bridges, agricultural 
societies, and an agricultural bureau, and that we ought to 
have something handsome to show at the end of each year 
for such expenditure. (Hear, hear.) On a point of most 
immediate importance — the Spring Emigration, and the 
arrangements made to meet it, — I must entreat the House 
to extend to me its indulgence, in the next place. I need 
hardly say, that I did not take up this inquiry in the 
beginning with any view either to serve or to injure par- 
ticular individuals, and that I do not intend — so far as I 
can help it — to let the reform demanded assume any vin- 
dictive aspect. (Hear, hear.) But justice must be done 
fearlessly done, in the Port of Quebec, the coming season, 
or the loud cry of disappointed hope, going home from this 
side, will reach us all, from the highest to the humblest 
person connected with this Government. Having origi- 
nally recommended the appointment of provincial agents 
abroad, in my report of 1860, I was of course happy to see 
that that suggestion had been acted upon, as far as Great 
Britain and Ireland, Germany, Prance, and Belgium were 
concerned. There may be some doubts as to whether the 

p 2 



212 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

persons appointed pro tem. to fill those offices have been 
always the fittest persons for their work — there may be some 
doubts whether they have been stationed at the best points 
for their work, but there can be no donbt that a few able 
agents on the other side of the Atlantic must be of benefit 
to this Province. The French agency has been objected 
to in some quarters as useless and unprofitable, but when 
we see from the statistics of New York that during the 
last few years from ten to twelve per cent, of all the arri- 
vals at that port were from Havre — some 8,000 last year 
out of 68,000 — when we see that Havre ranks as a North 
American port next to Liverpool and Hamburgh in this 
trade, I cannot concur that the appointment of Mr. Yerret 
was a needless or improper one. If Mr. Yerret should not 
succeed in doing much in France, he may make better 
progress in Belgium and Switzerland — at least let us hope 
so, for the sake of the undertaking. (Hear, hear.) Whether 
Berlin is the proper station for the German, agent, Mr. 
Wagner, despatched by the Crown Lands Department, I 
cannot pretend to say, but my impression is, that one of 
the great northern shipping ports — Bremen or Llamburgh 
— ought to be his head-quarters. (Hear, hear.) But 
another appointment equally important, which was sug- 
gested in i860, has not yet been made, — I mean a Cana- 
dian agent at New York. By the New York booking 
system, we know that, in 1859, 2,000 emigrants were 
landed at that port whose destination was Canada ; that, 
in 1860, there were 1,880 ; and in 1861, 1,554 similarly 
bound for Canada ; — or, in three years, 5,434 settlers. 
Now tins is a contingent well worth looking after. And, 
supposing such an agent appointed at New York, it might 
be made part of his business during other seasons of the 
year to visit those neighbourhoods in which there are native 
Canadians willing and anxious to return to this country, 
to report the facts, and to arrange for their return. (Hear, 
hear.) He would also meet with other British subjects — 
with some of those hundreds of natives of the British 
Isles who have besieged the Consulates in the great 
cities, anxious to be sent back again to their old homes, 






SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 213 

where they will find themselves, on their return, strangers 
indeed, and from which they may be forced, in all proba- 
bility, to a second emigration. (Hear, hear.) I am not 
an advocate for the creation of new offices, Mr. Speaker, 
unless when they are shown to be really required ; but I 
would not be doing my duty to the Province, if I did 
not once more point out the importance of a proper agent 
at New York, as well as at Liverpool, Havre, and Ham- 
burgh. As to the new arrangement of the Inland Agents 
within this Province, I am not prepared to speak in de- 
tail at this moment ; besides, so much depends on the 
personal habits and character of the men, and so much on 
the head of the department, that I shrink from discussing 
particular reforms until we have examined them in Com- 
mittee ; and I hope we may have the united sanction of 
the Committee for recommendations which, as an indivi- 
dual, and a member in opposition, I fear would have little 
chance of adoption — coming from me. I will not, there- 
fore, dwell on that point; for it must rest, in the end, 
with the Minister of Agriculture whether any of these 
offices are to continue sinecures or to be made realities. 
Mr. Speaker, the mention of New York reminds me of 
the truly sagacious and politic care which that State and 
City has of late years exercised over the emigrants arriving 
in their waters. Formerly it was not so. But for the 
past ten or twelve years no department of the public ser- 
vice has been more steadily improving than the depart- 
ment committed to the Commissioners of Emigration. I 
have here their last Annual Report, and it is highly 
instructive to see how they handled the 68,000 aliens 
landed in their port during 1861. I have thrown their 
results into a tabular form of my own, for greater conve- 
nience, and I find that — 

The arrivals at New York in 1861 were . . . 68,311 



Of these, arrived in steamers 21,110 

In sailing ships ........ 37,201 

Total number of vessels ....... 453 

Average of passengers to ship 150 



214 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

Destination of New York arrivals in 1861. 

New York City and State . . . . . . 32,783 

Pennsylvania and New Jersey ..... 7,006 

New England States 5,779 

Western States 16,595 

Southern States 3,755 

Canada West 1,544 

Canada East 8 

Balance to California, &c 



Aid and Employment Afforded. 

Amount received at Castle Garden and its agencies, from 
friends of emigrants in interior, to assist emigrants on 

arrival $17,591 00 

Advances made to emigrants on deposits of baggage . . 1,299 00 
Of which was repaid during the year .... 1,26700 

Number who received treatment or relief in Emigrant 

Refuge and Hospital 5,079 

Number of emigrants sent back to Europe at their own 

request ......... 413 

Number provided with temporary lodging in New York, 

Albany, Buffalo, &c 6,177 

Temporarily supplied with food in Castle Garden . . 1,389 

Number of persons of both sexes provided with situations 
by Commissioners and their agents in New York City 
and State 6,023 

Emigrant Correspondence. 

Letters written at Castle Garden for emigrants . . . 1,682 

Letters received for ditto ...... 641 



It will be seen by a glance at these figures how tho- 
roughly the Americans have, to nse their own expression, 
" realised the idea" .that emigration is a source of national 
wealth. For some they have nursed and tended ; for 
some they have found prompt employment; for others 
they have made themselves clerks and correspondents ; to 
others they have advanced cash on deposits of baggage, 
which they report have always been repaid. (Hear, hear.) 
We may deprecate as we please some traits of American 
life ; but, in working up the raw material of a new country 
into populous and prosperous communities, it would be 
well for us to imitate their sagacity, and their system. 
(Hear, hear.) I refer to the New York arrangements, to 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 215 

point out the absolute necessity of an enclosed landing- 
place for emigrants arriving in our own port. Is it not a 
reproacli that we here, in Quebec, have less care for our 
fellow-subjects, present or prospective, than the Americans 
have at New York (hear, hear) ; — that the newly-arrived 
strangers on our docks, male and female, may be exposed 
and tempted to their ruin, as they have been too often 
tempted and seduced, both male and female, for want of a 
properly-provided landing depot ? I do not pretend that 
we could set up anything on the scale of the .New York 
buildings — there is no need for so costly an establishment; 
but there is need for a safe and ordinary means of 
accommodating over night 200 or 300 persons, who are 
anxious to draw breath before continuing their pilgrimage 
to the interior. In the name of humanity — in the name 
of common decency — I appeal to the gentlemen opposite 
to see that some temporary landing-place and Emigrant 
Refuge is provided, before the Spring fleet pours its pas- 
sengers in upon us. It was mainly to effect this one 
point that I was so anxious to obtain my Committee before 
the Easter recess ; — but it is not yet too late, if the hon. 
gentlemen opposite will order it to be done. (Loud cries 
of " Hear.") The value of every suggestion of this kind 
must depend, Mr. Speaker, not only on its fitness, but also 
on the character of the Minister entrusted with its execu- 
tion if it should be adopted — I allude to the Minister of 
Agriculture. Now, it seems to me, Sir, and I believe the 
opinion to be a growing one, that that portfolio ought to 
be estimated as one of the most important, — requiring as 
good abilities as any other in the Administration. Every 
one admits that the legal offices of those who may be 
called our Ministers of Justice, — that the Einances, the 
Crown Lands, and the Public Works, require able men to 
fill them well ; but, hitherto, it seems to have been con- 
sidered that the Ministry of Agriculture — including, as it 
ought to do, Emigration — might be given to any second 
or third-rate man. (Hear, hear.) Now, what should be 
fairly required as a standard of ability in such a depart- 
ment ? Should the Minister appointed know as much as 



216 BKITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

a clerk under the Civil Service Act ? Should he know 
what the Provincial Examiners insist upon as the standard 
for every land surveyor ? Should he know all parts of his 
own country well, and something of other countries from 
which we draw so much of our labour, and to which we 
export so much of our produce ? I will not be guilty of 
the arrogance of defining the duties of such an office by 
any description of my own, but I will seek for an example 
of what such a Minister ought to be ; and, happily, I can 
find an illustrious example in the history of this Province, 
in the person of one of its old Prench Governors, whose 
memory is too little known among us in these days. The 
Swedish Naturalist, Peter Kalm, a disciple of Linneeus, 
who visited Canada, and stayed some time in this city in 
the year 1749, has left us, in his "Travels," the following 
account of the Marquis de la Galiissonniere, then Governor- 
General of this country : — 

" He (the Marquis de la Galiissonniere) has a surprising 
knowledge in all branches of science, and especially in 
natural history; in which he is so well versed, that when 
he began to speak with me about it, I imagined I saw our 
great Linnseus under a new form. When he spoke of the 
use of natural history, of the method of learning, and 
employing it to raise the state of a country, I was asto- 
nished to see him take his reasons from politics, as well as 
natural philosophy, mathematics, and other sciences. I 
own that my conversation with this nobleman was very 
instructive to me; and I always drew a deal of useful 
knowledge from it. He told me several ways of employing 
natural history to the purposes of politics, and to make a 
country powerful in order to depress its envious neigh- 
bours. Never has natural history had a greater promoter 
in this country ; and it is very doubtful whether he will 
ever -have his equal here. As soon as he got the place of 
Governor-General he began to take those measures for 
getting information in natural history which I have men- 
tioned before. When he saw people who had been in a 
settled part of the country, especially in the more remote 
parts, or had travelled in those parts, he always questioned 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 217 

them, about the trees, plants, earths, stones, ores, animals, 
&c., of the place. He likewise inquired what use the 
inhabitants made of those things ; in what state their hus- 
bandry was ; what lakes, rivers, and passages there are ; 
and a number of other particulars. Those who seemed to 
have clearer notions than the rest, were obliged to give 
him circumstantial descriptions of what they had seen. 
He himself wrote down all the accounts he received ; and 
by this great application, so uncommon among persons of 
his rank, he soon acquired a knowledge of the most dis- 
tant parts of America. The priests, commandants of forts, 
and of several distant places, are often surprised by his 
questions, and wonder at his knowledge, when they come 
to Quebec to pay their visits to him ; for he often tells 
them that near such a mountain, or on such a shore, &c, 
where they often w r ent a-hunting, there are some particular 
plants, trees, earth, ores, &c, for he had got a knowledge 
of those things before. From whence it happened that 
some of the inhabitants believed that he had a preterna- 
tural knowledge of things, as he was able to mention all 
the curiosities of places, sometimes near two hundred 
Swedish miles from Quebec, though he never was there 
himself. Never was there a better statesman than he; 
and nobody can take better measures, and choose more 
proper means for improving a country, and increasing its 
welfare." (Hear, hear.) 

This is the portrait of a Franco-Canadian statesman of 
the eighteenth century, wdio considered " natural history," 
which then included geology and metallurgy, an essential 
study for a statesman in a country like Canada. Now I 
will not, under cloak of the Marquis de la Gallissonniere's 
great name, stoop to draw any satirical contrasts betw r een 
the present holder of the portfolio of Agriculture and the 
Marquis de la Gallissonniere. But supposing, Mr. Speaker, 
the organisation of the department to be all that it ought 
to be, in its head and its members, let us consider the 
attractions we can offer in Canada to intending settlers.* 

* The very rich deposits of gold on the Chaudiere and its tributaries, in 
the Quebec district, had not yet attracted public attention. They have 



218 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

It is true that this Province has neither the golden rivers 
of California nor the luxurious climate of Australia; but 
it has two things which free-born men value even higher 
— complete civil and religious liberty, and productive 
land to be acquired by any man's industry. Our chief 
moral attraction must ever lie in our institutions ; our 
chief material attraction must lie in cheap or free land. 
The institutions of this Province, whatever defects may 
exist, are, take them all in all, the most desirable in the 
world ; and if we can only succeed in keeping down the 
wrathful spirit of religious bigotry — bigotry on all sides — 
that despotic temper which makes a bigot in religion and 
a despot in politics out of the self-same stuff; — if we only 
succeed in keeping down that spirit, the institutions of 
Canada ought naturally to attract valuable accessions to 
our population from abroad. As to our material advan- 
tages, the land resources of this Province are not so well 
understood, even by Canadians themselves, as they should 
be. Which of us familiarly thinks of the hundred mil- 
lion acres in Lower, and fifty million acres in Upper 
Canada, so ably and fully described in that vade mecum of 
such information, the Crown Land Commissioner's Report 
of 1857, for which the hon. gentleman (Mr. Cauchon) and 
those who assisted him in its preparation deserve the 
highest credit, — a Report that ought to be familiar to every 
Member of this House. (Hear, hear.) But confining 
ourselves to the public lands actually in the market in this 
Province, we find that we commence the year with over 
7,600,000 acres of Crown Lands in the two sections; over 
500,000 acres of Clergy Lands, — not to mention the School 
Lands, the Indian Lands, and the Ordnance Lands, with- 
held, and I think very properly withheld, for the present. 
I will trouble the House with a tabular view of these 
lands, taken from the new emigration pamphlet, giving 
the acreage in round numbers only : — 

since been tested in the most practical way, but only over a limited extent 
of the auriferous field, and the result so far has been such as to encourage 
the formation of several mining companies, chiefly by capitalists at Boston 
and New York. 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 219 



Canada East. 

Acres. 
Counties on the north side of the Ottawa . . . 1,093, 000 
Counties on the north side of St. Lawrence . . . 1,378,000 

Counties south side of St. Lawrence .... 1,544,000 



Total available in Canada East, in 1862 . . . 4,015,000 

Canada West. 

In the Ottawa and Huron country * . . . 600,000 
Continuations of Lennox, Frontenac, Addington, and 

District of Nipissing 660,000 

Continuations of Hastings, and Peterborough, Victoria, 

Simcoe, and part of Nipissing ..... 1,170,000 

District of Algoma 200,000 

Fort William (Lake Superior) 64,000 



Total available in Canada West, in 1862 . . 2,694,000 

These are the figures according to the new emigration 
pamphlet, while according to the Crown Land Commis- 
sioner's Report for the year ending December 31st, 1861, 
the Crown Lands actually in the market at that date 
were : — 

Acres. 

Canada West . . 2,021,229| 

Canada East 5,593,833 



Total Crown Lands in market . . . . 7,615,062^ 

This domain might be diminished at the rate of a million 
acres a year, — by 10,000 or 20,000 one hundred acre 
farms, and the decrease would not be felt, — the want would 
be supplied by the new surveys, on which the Province 
keeps constantly employed from two to three hundred land 
surveyors. As the House is aware, Mr. Speaker, a per 
centage of this immense domain is very liberally given 
away in " free grants ; w to what extent that per centage 
may be actually in demand I am not now going to discuss, 
but the average price at which the lands of the Crown, 
disposed of by sale, are sold, cannot be considered exorbi- 
tant. In Upper Canada the average price obtained in the 
sales of last year was, for the Crown Lands $1.25, the 
School Lands $1.50, and the Clergy Lands $2.50 ; in 



220 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

Lower Canada the average prices were, for tlie Crown 
Lands less than 50 cents, and for the Clergy Lands less 
than $1 per acre. Considering that on these purchases 
five years' time is usually given, and that a first instalment 
of ten per cent, is all that is usually required, it is evident 
that the first cost of our public lands cannot be any great 
obstacle to the more general settlement of our waste terri- 
tory. Are there, then, defects in the machinery by which 
the lands are to be settled ? — are the formalities expensive ? 
— are the surveys inaccessible ? — are there hostile combi- 
nations? These are all considerations of the utmost im- 
. portance for this House, and especially for the Committee 
which I have proposed. Before passing altogether from 
this point, I cannot but remark on the existence among us 
of certain landed monopolies, which, I fear, have given 
Canada a bad name for a poor man's country to get. I 
allude to such corporations as the British American Land 
Company and the Canada Company ; and speaking of these 
great companies, I was sorry to see, Sir, by the Crown 
Lands Eeport for this year, that Mr. Yankoughnet had dis- 
posed "of ten townships en bloc" in the Ottawa and Lake 
Huron tract to another of these companies. I know that 
the late Commissioner, to whose great administrative abilities 
I have always cheerfully paid homage, intended and stipu- 
lated that settlement duties should be rigorously exacted of 
this new company. (Hear, hear.) But who is to answer 
that his successors will be equally resolute ? Who is to 
guarantee the Province that a corporation rich enough to 
purchase will not be influential enough to hold up these 
ten townships at an excessive figure, and so keep back the 
surrounding settlements ? What has been our experience 
of these large landed companies ? They ail came into 
existence with the fairest possible professions towards this 
Province. The Canada Company and the British American 
Company were created by Boyal Charter before the days of 
Responsible Government, so we are not fairly answerable 
for them, as we shall be for others, if others are to be 
created by our own action. The Canada Company's report 
for the present year is now in my possession, and shows 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAELIAMENT. 221 

how they have used their chartered privileges to speculate 
upon Canadian lands during the past few years. The 
directors congratulate the proprietors on the constant pro- 
gressive rise of prices in their sales of wild lands. They 
say:— 

"The Directors again draw the attention of the pro- 
prietors to the steady annual increase in the market value 
of the Company's lands as a most satisfactory and important 
feature in their affairs ; the ultimate success of their opera- 
tions depending, as it does in some degree, upon the pro- 
gessive increase in the price to be obtained from the sale of 
the remainder of their estate. The subjoined table of land 
disposed of since the year 1829, arranged in decennial 
periods, furnishes an interesting illustration on this head : — 

1829 to 1840. . . . 736,608 acres, at lis. Id. per acre, 
1841 to 1850 .... 989,117 „ 15s. 4d. ,, 
1851 to 1861. " . . . 493,873 „ 32s. 4d. 

"It will be seen from these figures that, although the 
quantity of land disposed of during the last ten years has 
been less by one-half than in the preceding period, it 
realised more than double the amount." 

No doubt this is a most satisfactory state of things to 
the Canada Company, to the Directors of the Canada Com- 
pany, and to the proprietors of the Canada Company, but 
if the growth of the western section of the Province is in 
some degree retarded, if its increasing population is ob- 
structed by this, for the American world, exorbitant price 
of wild land (32s. sterling per acre), it is not quite so satis- 
factory a state of things for Canada as for the Company. 
The transactions of the Company during the first two 
months of the present year, are figured up in the same 
report, as follows : — 

"From the 1st January to the 28th February, 1862 :— 
424 acres have been sold at 32s. lid. per acre. 
6,221 acres have been leased at 56s. lid. per acre. 
24,522 acres converted to freeholds." 

The collections of money for the same period amount to 
36,800/. currency, viz. : — 



222 BRITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

" On account of purchase money ..... £26,875 
„ rent and interest . . ... 9,581 
,, sundries 314 

" The sum of 31,000/. sterling/' adds the Report, "has 
been remitted home by the Commissioners since the 31st 
December." 

I have no disposition, Mr. Speaker, to exaggerate the 
evil in our state of society of these great land companies, 
but I think it my duty to state to this House that both in 
the Eastern Townships, where the British American Land 
Company still retains en bloc many thousands of acres, and 
in those counties in Upper Canada in which the Canada 
Company retains its vast reserves, that they are generally 
looked upon as lets rather than as aids to settlement. 
They allow their lands to lie waste, unless they can get 
their own exorbitant prices, or if they lease them it is often 
to take them back again from the disheartened lessees ; for, 
in any event, the value is certain to increase by the mere 
increase of the neighbouring settlements on the lands of 
the Crown. The whole surrounding country is tugging to 
lift that dead weight of corporate lands held en bloc, and if 
a more liberal policy is not adopted by them — if a policy 
less hostile to Canadian interests is not adopted — this Pro- 
vince may be compelled, in self-defence, to inquire by what 
means it may best mitigate this evil, and enfranchise the 
large scopes of country now held in worse than mortmain 
clutch.* The Clergy Reserves and the Seignorial Tenure, 
strong as they were, had to give way to the requirements 
of a growing society; and those companies, if they are 
wise for themselves, will not overdo the opportunities which 
they unfortunately possess, to retard, in many sections, the 
growth of population. (Cheers.) It might seem to be a 
sufficient cure for this evil, that the millions of acres of 
Crown Lands in the market were to be had, in Upper 
Canada, on an average at $2 per acre, and in Lower 
Canada, from $1 to 50 cents per acre; but, unfortunately, 

* This language should be received with many modifications, as larger 
experience has instructed us. But the objection as to abase of privileges 
remains good. 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 



223 



the great companies have got into the very heart of the 
land ; they have got prime soil centrally situated — which 
gives them the opportunity they so usuriously employ, to 
monopolise and overcharge — according to all existing 
American standards of the value of wild lands. (Hear, 
hear.) Another topic in connection with our land policy 
relates to what are called the Colonisation or "Free Grant " 
roads, east and west. (Hear, hear.) Prom the Crown 
Land Commissioner's Keport, just laid on the table of the 
House, we may see at a glance with what unequal strides 
the work of free colonisation went on, last year, in Upper 
as compared with Lower Canada. In this section of the 
Province all the free grants fell a fraction short of 10,000 
acres; while in Upper Canada the free grants somewhat 
exceeded 80,000 acres. Now, as to the quantity of "free 
grant " land reduced to cultivation during the year, the 
number of settlers actually established on the colonisation 
roads, and the reported value of the annual production on 
those new lines of road, I have taken the Commissioner's 
figures, and I find that the result in each section of the 
Province, for last year, stands thus : — 









Total value of 


Roads in Upper Canada. 


Acres. 


Settlers. 


Products in 1861. 


Addington 


726 


27 


138,562.20 


Bobcaygeon. . . . 


— 


— 


30,007.10 


Hastings . 


960 


88 


44,418.15 


Muskoka . „ . . 


300 


62 


4,900.23 


Opeougo . 


416 


40 


36,716.32 


Total Upper Canada . . 


2,402 


217 


$154,584.00* 








Value of Products 


Roads in Lower Canada. 


Arpents. 


Settlers. 


in 1861. 


Elgin road 


731 


29 


$15,000.72 


Matane ,, . . . . 


705 


. — 


4,443.15 


Kempt ,, . 


305 


14 


1,317.70 




1,741 


43 


$20,762.57 



The colonisation road expenditure last year in Lower 
Canada was over $52,000, and for that very considerable 

* This figure must be taken, not for the year 1861 alone, but for all 
" free grant " reclamations on those roads to that date. 



224 BEITISH-AMEEICAN UNION. 

sum and the donation of 10,000 acres, we have 43 new 
" free grant " settlers added to the pioneer population. 
Those 10,000 acres, according to the statutory limitation 
of 100 acres the grant, ought to give the Province at least 
100 such settlers. It may be that on some of these free 
grants, settlement duties will be commenced the present 
spring, but it is evident that taking 1861 by itself, the 
acres granted are not represented by the required number 
of grantees. (Hear, hear.) In Upper Canada (exclusive 
of the Bobcaygeon road, not returned), we have only 217, 
instead of 300 new settlers for 30,000 acres; but this is 
a nearer approximation to the requirements of the law, 
than has been made in Lower Canada. It would be in- 
structive to know what proportion of these "free grants," 
so freely advertised abroad, were taken up by Emigrants 
and what portion by native Canadians ; but I believe there 
is, at present, no official information of that kind — unless 
it may be supplied in the Report of the Minister of Agri- 
culture, not yet in our hands. (Hear, hear.) Another 
important consideration for us, at this moment, remains to 
be taken up. We were invited, as you will remember, Mr. 
Speaker, in His Excellency's speech, at the opening of the 
session, to consider the highly important subject of our 
military defences, and we have assured His Excellency that 
we will give our best attention to that subject. I have 
full confidence that this House will keep good faith with 
His Excellency; but, Mr. Speaker, I deny that we can 
wisely consider the subject of our defences apart from the 
subject of our population. (Hear, hear.) Nay, more; we 
must consider it in connection with the growth of that 
American population who alone can ever cross our border 
in anger. Our boundary is theirs ; but while on our side 
there are at present about 2,500,000 inhabitants, in the 
States that face our frontier there are nearly 20,000,000. 
Does any one believe that we could hold our own, with 
the odds against us eight to one? Allow everything you 
please for a people defending their own soil — allow every- 
thing you please for Imperial assistance — the disproportion 
between the two populations is so enormous as to inspire 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 225 

many with the apprehension that it is a mere question of 
time, when it must come to our turn to be devoured by 
our gigantic neighbour. I feel, Sir, that these fears are 
neither weak nor fanciful ; but I still hold that if we use 
our present opportunities as we ought — if we fill in our 
frontiers with a sturdy yeomanry — if we create and estab- 
lish a peasant proprietary, trained from youth to the use of 
arms, that Canada may fairly pretend to an independent 
existence on this continent. I have no knowledge of mili- 
tary affairs, Mr. Speaker, but I would beg the attention of 
the House in considering our defences, as well as the pre- 
sent subject, to a glance at the map of the country, both 
the populated and unsettled parts of it, and to the inquiry 
which arises from even such a glance, what connection exists 
between the distribution of our people, and their resources 
for self-defence ? It seems probable that we shall all be 
obliged to study the map of the country hereafter, more 
than we ever did before ; and it is impossible, it seems to 
me, to cast even a cursory glance at it without feeling that 
we occupy one of the most peculiar positions — that our 
population, so far, is the most peculiarly distributed — of 
any to be found anywhere else on this side of the world. 
Our great central valley from Cornwall to the Saguenay is 
banked on both sides with settlements, facing to the front 
and not extending, on an average, except up the lateral 
valley of the Ottawa, and in the direction of the Eastern 
Townships, 50 miles from the St. Lawrence ; we have thus 
a long narrow riband of population, one-seventh the breadth 
of its own length, as singularly shaped a country as eye 
ever beheld. East of the junction of the Saguenay with 
the St. Lawrence, our population is carried down to the 
gulf by the south shore alone, while west of Cornwall, it is 
found only to the north of the Upper St. Lawrence and the 
great Lakes. The peopled part of the Province thus pre- 
sents the shape of a long fantastic letter " S " — a waving 
Lesbian line, which, to my eye, is neither a line of beauty 
nor of grace, nor of defensive strength. At and above 
Cornwall, this twist of population is denned by the 45th 
parallel of latitude, but there is no necessity for any such 

Q 



226 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

peculiarity in Lower Canada. From the Ottawa to the 
St. Maurice, and from the St. Maurice to the Saguenay 
on the one shore ; from the Chateaugay to the Du Loup 
on the other shore, there is the strongest testimony of the 
best authorities — surveyors, geologists, lumberers, practical 
men of all origins — that three, four, seven-fold the present 
population may find ample space and remuneration for their 
industry. (Hear, hear.) Fortunately for us who advocate 
the recruiting of a productive rather than of a destructive 
army, science with its hammer and its theodolite has been 
for twenty years at work in these wildernesses. Our living 
geologists have exploded one fallacy — that ♦.he granite 
country between the Ottawa and Lake Huron could never 
sustain a numerous population; and this is precisely the 
same country, geologically, which we find open to settle- 
ment in Lower Canada. (Hear, hear.) This is precisely 
the character of the North Shore counties between Mon- 
treal and Quebec, where, if ever Canada stands at bay, in 
defence of her separate nationality, it must be with her 
back to that great Laurentian chain of highlands which 
trends away from the Saguenay to the Ottawa and from the 
Ottawa to Lake Huron. (Cheers.) I have not a particle 
of desire, Mr. Speaker, to underrate or overrate the un- 
touched resources either of Upper or Lower Canada ; it is 
as truly gratifying to me to read the testimony of Mr. 
Symmes, Superintendent of the St. Maurice Works, to the 
excellent soil in portions of that valley, as it is to read the 
testimony of Mr. P. L. S. Salter that there is abundant 
room for "sixty-five townships of thirty-six square miles 
each," on the north south of Lake Huron. (Hear, hear.) 
I rejoice to find the country widening before us, as we 
advance both east and west; I rejoice to know that we 
have no limit to our growth, but the line of perpetual frost, 
beyond the Laurentian mountains. (Cheers.) Another 
subject not remotely involved in the object of my Com- 
mittee, is the representation question. We cannot be blind 
to the fact that at the Union, Lower Canada contained 
some 225,000 more inhabitants than Upper Canada, and 
that now she contains 290,000 less. This is an actual 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 227 

decrease of above 500,000 in twenty years. Now, does 
any rational man believe that this disparity can continue, 
and yet that strict equality of representation can be upheld ? 
If not, what then is the obvious remedy ? Have the limits 
of population in Lower Canada been reached? Are her 
cultivable lands all taken up ? So far from it, that I am 
well satisfied, Mr. Speaker, from all the evidence taken 
before the several Committees over which I presided — from 
all the reports of men of science and men of business, that 
even below Quebec the soil and the climate will not be 
found materially different from the soil and climate of the 
still unsettled parts of Upper Canada, between Lake Huron 
and the Ottawa. There are with us two regions to the 
North and South of the St. Lawrence — what are commonly 
called " the St. Maurice country " and the " Eastern Town- 
ships ; " we have abundant evidence, obtained at great 
expense to the Province, of the extent and resources of 
both these regions. Popularly, the Eastern Townships are 
tolerably well known ; much has been done for them, and 
much more ought to be done. (Hear, hear.) That instead 
of a quarter of ^a million they are capable of sustaining 
three to four million souls, is generally admitted, — but the 
St. Maurice is a complete terra incognita. The summer 
traveller who hears steam blown off at night at Three 
Eivers, little dreams that he has just passed a great river, 
which two hundred miles from its outlet is still a great 
river ; which drains a country larger than all Scotland, — 
and as capable as Scotland of bearing its three millions of 
inhabitants. (Hear, hear.) Why is this great valley shut 
up from the native and the immigrant settler alike ? Why 
does the native Canadian turn disheartened away from its 
pathless woods ? Why does the crowded passenger ship 
and the laden steamer pass by its port, Three Eivers, year 
by year, and day by day ? When last 1 spoke on this 
subject in this place, I quoted a statement which had ap- 
peared in a local paper that opposition to its settlement 
came chiefly from an Eon. member of this House (Hon. Mr. 
Turcotte). The paper referred to has since withdrawn 
that statement, and I am happy to repeat, unsolicited, the 

Q 2 



228 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

correction, for I could not believe that any Canadian states- 
man would be capable of entering into a conspiracy against 
any class of Her Majesty's subjects seeking a home in this 
country, (Hear, hear.) We are here, Mr. Speaker, within 
100 miles direct of the middle waters of that great river 
on which there are as yet but two or three townships 
organised — Polette, Turcotte, and Shawinegan. Quebec 
wants a back country — and 30 or 40 miles of a road, con- 
tinued from Gosford, would tap the St. Maurice at the 
Tuque, the centre of its lumber operations, and give Quebec 
a back country. A lateral road again from the St. Maurice 
to the waters of the La Lievre and the Gatineau would not 
be so heavy an undertaking as the Opeongo Road, in 
Upper Canada, which, from Renfrew to Lake Huron, is to 
be 186 miles in length. Such roads might serve to give 
immediate employment to a number of emigrant labourers, 
under skilled leaders, to familiarise them to the use of the 
axe, and to prepare them in one season for dealing with 
"the bush" in the next. (Hear, hear.) My hon. friend, 
the member for Napierville (Mr. Bureau), who has given 
great attention to this subject, has a notice on the paper 
for an increase of the Colonisation road grant, and, under 
certain conditions, I think such an increase desirable; but 
everything depends — everything — on the spirit and system 
in which the service is hereafter to be administered. If 
that department was in the hands of a Marquis de la 
Gallissionniere — if such a man lived in these degenerate 
days — he would soon, without favoritism or injustice, or 
conspiracy, redress the balance of population between the 
east and west — he would give us internal peace on just 
principles, and external security, on the guarantee of our 
united numbers. (Cheers.) I cannot but think, Mr. 
Speaker, that, under a proper administrative system, the-* 
'County agricultural societies, and the municipalities, might 
also be made important auxiliaries in the settlement of our 
waste lands. By the new emigration pamphlet just pub- 
lished, we learn that certain municipalities have informed 
the Bureau of a demand for upwards of 13,500 farm 
labourers, servants, and mechanics. It strikes me that 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAELIAMENT. 229 

these little local parliaments might do something more, if 
they were not afraid of being flooded with a pauper immi- 
gration. But that fear, in view of the present social state 
of Great Britain and Ireland, is quite chimerical. The 
pauper class is no longer there ; they have been cut out of 
the basis of society; we shall, fortunately, never see again 
the scenes Canada saw in 1832 and 184 7. The munici- 
palities, then, ought to be enlisted with the government in 
operations in common, to feel a direct interest in the com- 
mon object — to make Canada a powerful and populous 
country. There is yet another impediment in our way to 
which I must allude before I close. It is, the impression 
which seems to prevail in some quarters, that there is an 
inevitable conflict of interests between the lumberer and the 
actual settler. But this conflict the spread of intelligence 
will postpone indefinitely. To the experienced eye of the 
surveyor or the geologist, the character of the timber in- 
dicates the character of the soil. Such men need not look 
below the surface ; if they find large hemlocks and bass- 
woods mixed with white pine, maple, beech and birch, they 
immediately infer a warm productive soil beneath. " Mixed 
timber generally," says Mr. Duncan Sinclair (a good autho- 
rity, — in his reply to my committee in 1860), "indicates 
good land." " Oak and black walnut," he adds, " always 
bespeak themselves good soil to grow upon." There is 
no necessity for the lumberer's interest and the settler's 
coming into collision ; but valuable as the timber trade is, 
agriculture is more valuable still, and those charged with 
the supervision of the public domain should see that the 
greater interest is not sacrificed to the less. (Hear, hear.) 
The woods and forests and the agricultural settlements 
are necessary and useful to each other, and it ought not 
to be a matter of difficulty for a firm and intelligent 
Minister to ensure each its own field, and to guarantee all 
fair advantages to both. (Hear, hear.) I have thus, Mr. 
Speaker, endeavoured to sketch hastily and very imperfectly, 
in consequence of the lateness of the night, the outlines of 
a reform which I believe to be essential to the best interests, 
to the largest increase, and fullest security of this Pro- 



230 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

vince. The Committee which the House is, I am rejoiced 
to know, well disposed to grant, will, I trust, be as much 
more effectual as it will be more numerous, than any of its 
predecessors. In alluding to the Committees of the last 
Parliament, I will only say of them, that any one who will 
take the trouble to consult the journals of this House for 
1860 (vol. xviii.) and 1861 (vol. xix.) may see in detail the 
reforms we formerly projected and advocated. I cannot 
but again express my gratification that some of those re- 
forms have been adopted — such as the agencies abroad, and 
districting the inland agencies, to some extent. I confess, 
Mr. Speaker, I am deeply, nervously anxious about the 
emigration of the coming spring. If it is botched, we 
shall be all to blame, and the fair fame of the Province will 
be deeply compromised; but I trust we will be able to 
handle this difficult interest firmly and wisely, as well as 
tenderly. The subject should enlist all our sympathies, 
for in one sense, and that no secondary one, all men have 
been emigrants or sons of emigrants since the first sad 
pair departed out of Eden, when — 

" The World was all before them, where to choose 
A place of rest, and Providence their guide." 

In these latter days, as well as from the first, we renew the 
ancestral experience, obeying the Divine ordinance — " go 
forth and fill the earth and subdue it." (Cheers.) In the 
eyes of the frivolous and the vain, such wanderers may be 
adventurers, and the term adventurer may be made to mean 
anything that is base and disreputable. But all the civi- 
lisation of the world has been the handiwork of just such 
adventurers. Heroic adventurers gave Greece her civilisa- 
tion; sainted adventurers gave Borne her Christianity; the 
glorified adventurers celebrated in history, established in 
western Europe those laws and liberties which we are all 
endeavouring to perpetuate in America. (Cheers.) Let 
us rather, then, as adventurer has lost its true meaning, let 
us rather look upon the emigrant, wherever born and bred, 
as a founder, as a greater than kings and nobles, because 
he is destined to conquer for himself, and not by the hired 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 231 

hands of other men, his sovereign dominion over some 
share of the earth's surface. (Cheers.) He is the true 
founder who plants his genealogical tree deep in the soil of 
the earth, whose escutcheon bears, what Cowley so happily 
called the best shield of nations — " a plough proper in a 
field arable." (Cheers.) Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of a 
broad, uncircumscribed Canadian patriotism, which knows 
in this House, in any legislative light, neither race, nor 
religion, nor language, but only Canada and her advance- 
ment, I beg to move for the fourth time for a Committee 
on Emigration and Settlement. When I see those interests 
adopted as their own by hon. gentlemen opposite who have 
the power, if they have the will, to establish a new system, 
I certainly feel some degree of exultation at the favourable 
prospects which are before this great project. I can say 
for myself most truly, though not at all insensible either to 
the favour of my constituents or my colleagues in this 
House, that if I were quitting public life or personal life 
to-morrow, I would feel a far higher satisfaction in re- 
membering that some honest man's sheltering roof-tree had 
been raised by my advocacy, than if I bad been Premier or 
Governor of the Province. (Cheers.) Let it be the mad 
desire of others in Europe and America to lay waste 
populous places ; let it be our better ambition to populate 
waste places. In this we shall approach nearest to the 
Divine original, whose image, however defaced, we bear 
within us ; in this we shall become makers and creators of 
new communities and a new order of things ; it is to further 
in some degree this good work, during the present session, 
that I have now the honour to move for a Select Com- 
mittee to take into consideration the subject of Emigration 
and the Settlement of the country. [The hon. gentleman 
sat down amid loud cheers from all parts of the House.] * 

* On Monday, April 28, 1862, the following Committee were on motion 
of Mr. McGree, seconded by Mr. Bell of Lanark, appointed by the House :— ~ 
Mr. McGree, Honourable Messieurs Alleyn, Robinson, Foley, Loranger, 
Drummond and Portman, and Messrs. Jackson, McDougall, Robitaille, 
Joseph Dufresne, Be Cazes, Desaulniers, Pope, O'Halloran, Jobin, Bell 
(Lanark), Dawson, Scott, Abbott, Benjamin, Hooper, DicksoD, Haultain 
and McKellar. 



INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY DIPLOMACY. 

House of Assembly, Quebec, October 2nd, 1863. 

On the resolution to concur in the vote of $20,000 for 
exploration and survey of the proposed Intercolonial Rail- 
way — 

Hon. Mr. McGee said that, before concurrence was 
taken on this resolution, he begged leave to call attention 
to two additional documents laid on the table, since this 
subject was last under consideration. Among the papers 
sent down, there were only two really new, the despatch 
from His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor of New 
Brunswick, dated 18th September, 1863, and an elaborate 
answer thereto, contained in a memorandum from the 
Government of Canada, dated 29th September, 1863. 
The letter of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor 
says : — " I have the honour to transmit to your Excellency 
(Governor-General of Canada) the accompanying copy of a 
minute of my Executive Council. I readily assent to the 
adoption of the course recommended by this minute, and 
entirely concur in the hope therein expressed, that no 
further departure from the agreement entered into between 
the three Provinces will be hereafter proposed by your 
Excellency's advisers." It was quite evident from that 
short note that His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor 
of New Brunswick did not expect that any other portion 
of the Intercolonial agreement of September, 1862, would 
have been abandoned by the Government of Canada, except 
only in relation to the time of the preliminary survey. 
If this other memorandum of 29th September, drawn up by 
the Canadian Government, contained, as it professed to do, 
their deliberate conviction that the negotiations of 1862 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAELIAMENT. 233 

had come to an end ; if that was their deliberate conviction 
at the recent reconstruction of the Cabinet, an intimation 
to this effect ought to have been candidly and authori- 
tatively conveyed to the Governments of the Lower Pro- 
vinces before this, and also to this House and country. 
(Cheers.) But the first intimation of the abandonment on 
our part was made in this document of 29th September 
last. He called this document an uncandid document, and 
injurious in the highest degree to the character for good 
faith of this country; and if there was one thing more 
than another which any Government, either old or new, 
ought to preserve with jealousy, it was their reputation for 
good faith. This document went round and round Eobin 
Hood's barn, and did not state honestly that the members 
of the present Government, on coming into office, agreed 
among themselves to regard the negotiations entered into 
by Messrs. Howland and Sicotte as at an end. It did not 
pretend to say the Government was reconstructed on that 
understanding. If the Government had stated that, after a 
full and careful re-consideration of all the facts, they were 
resolved to abandon the negotiations ; if they had said so 
plainly and above board, they would have deserved credit 
for frankness at least. (Hear, hear.) But it was only 
now they came out with a declaration on this most im- 
portant subject of policy, with regard to which, months ago, 
the present Attorney- General East had left the Cabinet; 
and later, refused to become again a member, on the ground 
that this Intercolonial Eailroad question was not wholly 
abandoned. It was only now they took definite ground on 
this matter, which, if they had taken with credit to them- 
selves, should have been taken and held from the beginning. 
(Cheers.) But there had been a breach of faith on the 
part of our Government towards both the Colonial and 
Imperial Governments in regard to these Intercolonial 
Railroad negotiations. He would adduce evidence to prove 
this position, and did believe the members of the House 
would not permit this matter to be disposed of by a stab in 
the dark four months after. They should, in the previous 
session, in duty to the Premier himself, to the members 



234 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

of the former Government not in this one; in justice to 
the hon. negociators themselves, and by all the considera- 
tions of honour and national good faith, have stated frankly 
what they stated now. (Hear, hear.) The hon. gentleman 
now proceeded to read the minute of the Canadian Govern- 
ment to support his views of their conduct in reference to 
breaking off of the negotiations. The second paragraph 
read as follows : " The Committee find that, whilst the 
Executive Council of New Brunswick advise the appoint- 
ment of a surveyor to act in conjunction with the surveyor 
appointed by this Province to conduct the proposed survey, 
they would seem to qualify the recommendation by asso- 
ciating with it a hope that the survey being accomplished, 
the basis agreed upon by the Convention, held in Sep- 
tember, 1862, will be adhered to, if the construction of 
the railway be hereafter found practicable. The Committee 
learn with pleasure that, so far as the survey is concerned, 
their plans are cordially acquiesced in by the Executive of 
New Brunswick, and they look forward with satisfaction to 
the consummation of the important undertaking, of which 
the survey is the preliminary step. In order that there 
may be no misapprehension, however, between the Govern- 
ments of the Provinces having a common interest in this 
matter, the Committee think it right to call to mind the 
manner in which the negotiations conducted in London 
terminated, and the general position in which the question 
of an Intercolonial Railway at present stands in this Pro- 
vince. The Committee would remind your Excellency 
that the conditions proposed by the Imperial Government, 
in connection with the assistance to be rendered towards 
the construction of the railway, differed in some important 
particulars from the agreement of September, 1862, and 
from the instructions which the delegates sent on the part 
of Canada were charged to carry into effect. The Com- 
mittee may refer to the distinct refusal on the part of the 
Imperial Government to regard the contribution which 
Canada might make to the Intercolonial Eailway as being 
to that extent an expenditure for defensive purposes ; the 
proposed sinking fund, and to the condition set forth in 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 235 

the 9th of the series of propositions presented by the 
Imperial Government : — ' Government not to be asked for 
this guarantee until the line and surveys shall have been 
submitted to and approved by Her Majesty's Government, 
and until it shall have been shown to its satisfaction that 
the line can be constructed without further application for 
an Imperial guarantee/ The Imperial Government thus 
making the proposed assistance, by way of a loan, contingent 
upon the results of a previous survey establishing the suf- 
ficiency of the guarantee for the full purposes for which it 
was to be granted. The delegates, therefore, were con- 
strained to decline the acceptance of a proposal fettered by 
conditions so much at variance with their instructions, and 
their decision received the approval of their colleagues as 
being in harmony with the spirit of the agreement arrived 
at by the Quebec Convention, and in entire conformity with 
the unequivocal tone of public opinion in the Province. 
The negotiations founded upon the understanding entered 
into by the Convention of September, 1862, were regarded 
as terminated with the return of the delegates to this Pro- 
vince." Now this portion of the despatch was wholly 
incorrect, the delegates not being either instructed or con- 
strained to decline any propositions made by the Imperial 
Government, their duty being to transmit such to the other 
members of the Canadian Government for their considera- 
tion. The minute (Canadian Executive Council) went on 
to say — tf It was hoped that the Report of the Council of 
25th February last would have sufficed to prevent miscon- 
ception as to the necessary abandonment of the basis upon 
which the negotiations up to that time had been founded, 
and to show. that any further action by the Government of 
this Province must be the subject of subsequent considera- 
tion." Now, he denied that the Eeport of February 25, 
'63, indicated the necessary abandonment of the basis upon 
which the negotiations up to that time had been founded. 
He denied that the modification went further than as 
regards the necessity of a preliminary survey, which was a 
totally different thing. If it could be shown that the 
Order in Council of 25th February, 1862, pronounced 



236 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

necessary the abandonment of the basis referred to, then 
this memorandum of a few days ago was in harmony there- 
with, and the basis was abandoned by the last Government, 
and not the present. But no such thing could be shown. 
The minute of 29th September further stated, " That the 
carrying out of the agreement of September, 1862, neces- 
sarily depended upon the success of the negotiations with 
the Imperial Government, and the assent of the Legislatures 
of the three Provinces being obtained. These negotiations 
having failed, and it being manifest that the construction of 
the railway could not be attempted without Imperial aid, 
the Canadian Government did not feel that they were in a 
position to invite any action on the part of the Canadian 
Legislature, beyond making a preliminary survey, the re- 
sults of which may lead to further negotiations, and on a 
different basis from that agreed to by the Convention." 
The hon. gentleman (Mr. McGee) denied emphatically 
that the negotiations had failed. Such was not the fact. 
The document continued as follows : " In order to promote 
the construction of a work whicli the events of each suc- 
ceeding year invest with greater importance, the Committee 
addressed themselves to the task of devising plans whereby 
the attainment of the object might be secured in a manner 
consistent with the interests aud resources of this Province. 
They found that the examination of the route, and the 
satisfactory completion of a survey was also indicated by 
the Imperial Government, as conditions precedent of any 
negotiations, and they then informed your Excellency that 
they had decided, upon recommending an appropriation by 
the Legislature of Canada, for the purpose of making such 
a survey as is necessary to the final determination of the 
several proposals. In conformity with this, they have 
asked an appropriation of $10,000 during the present 
session, and they have also appointed an engineer to pro- 
ceed with the survey so soon as the requisite arrangements 
can be completed. The action of the Legislature has pro- 
ceeded so far as that it may be regarded as having rendered 
the appropriation a certainty, and the immediate commence- 
ment of the survey is, therefore, dependent only upon the 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 237 

unqualified concurrence of the Provinces of Nova Scotia 
and New Brunswick. The necessity of a prompt decision 
on the part of the Government of New Brunswick, with the 
view of an early commencement of the survey, is obvious, 
inasmuch as the season during which this survey may be 
most advantageously performed is rapidly passing away."" 
He would beg the House to observe that this was the first 
time any Canadian document attempted to place the re- 
sponsibility of the rejection of the proposition for a survey 
on the Governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 
— an attempt to make it appear that the terms of the 
negotiations agreed to by those Provinces, and incorpo- 
rated in both their Statutes, to which they never objected, 
had been abandoned by them, instead of by us. (Hear, 
hear.) It was quite evident they did nothing of the 
kind. (Cheers.) And, really, to ask them to give their 
concurrence to the abandonment of the terms was to ask 
them to abandon the scheme altogether. If this was what 
the Canadian Government wanted, let them drop out this 
paltry item of $20,000 for a survey, at once — let them 
get up and declare they were not in favour of the Inter- 
colonial project itself. 

Hon. J. S. Macdonald — Hear, hear, 

Hon. Mr. McGee would do the hon. gentleman the 
justice to say that he believed he was a friend of the 
scheme, and opposed to its abandonment; but his new 
colleagues, who were opposed to it, had dragged him with 
them in this matter. But his Government now asked 
the Lower Provinces to abandon the conditions accepted 
by them, and embodied in their Statutes. He (Hon. 
J. S. Macdonald) had become a party to that proceeding, 
whether willingly or unwillingly it mattered not, and upon 
him and his colleagues must fall the responsibility. He 
(Mr. McGee) could understand the conduct of the Hon. 
Attorney- General East, who had retired from the Macdonald- 
Sicotte Cabinet, and had refused to enter it again, out of 
hostility to the Intercolonial Railway scheme, and because 
it was not to be abandoned. 

Hon. J. S. Macdonald — No, no. 



238 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

Hon. Mr. McGee repeated this was the reason, and it 
was well known to the House and the country. (Hear, 
hear.) 

Several Opposition Members — Yes, yes. 

Hon. Mr. McGee would repeat he could understand 
Mr. Dorion's position on this question, but he could not 
understand, and thought this House would not understand, 
why it was necessary for Government to make this elaborate 
statement (the minute of 29th September) to throw the 
onus of the abandonment of the scheme on the Lower Pro- 
vinces, while in reality all the obstacles to it had arisen, 
one after another, in the sentiments and conduct of the 
present Canadian Government itself. (Cheers.) Having 
raised obstacle after obstacle, which the sister Provinces 
had generally overcome, our Government at last, having no 
longer an impediment to raise, had given an interpretation 
to their own policy on the Intercolonial Eailway project, 
which they had never given before the electors, or the 
country, or this House, during all the past discussions on 
this subject; and now, for the first time, four months after 
their ascent to power, we had an authoritative expression 
of the new policy in relation to this subject, with an attempt 
to make it appear of a piece with the old policy. (Hear, 
hear.) One of the most singular portions of the document 
which he had read was, that in relation to the necessity of 
a prompt decision on the part of New Brunswick, in order 
to the commencement of a survey of the route. This 
prompt decision was required on the part of New Bruns- 
wick — not on our part. (Loud laughter.) This was 
equivalent to saying again it was only the Lower Provinces 
that were raising obstacles. It would be remembered that 
on previous occasions he had endeavoured, but failed, to 
extract from the Government whether they had ever in- 
formed the Governments of the Lower Provinces that they 
had abandoned the policy of 1863. The Attorney-General 
East and Finance Minister had failed to answer this ques- 
tion when put to them on three several occasions, during 
the present session. (Hear, hear.) Now, however, we 
could get an answer when the members of the Administra- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 239 

tion had at length agreed among themselves upon the 
policy shadowed forth in this minute in Council of the 
29th September; now, when they had been four months in 
power, during almost the whole of which time they had no 
formed policy on this subject which they could transmit to 
the Lower Provinces, at long last our Ministers agree to 
a policy, and put their opinions on paper. The hon. gen- 
tleman proceeded to point out the incorrectness of the 
statement in the minute, relative to the object of the 
Imperial Government in asking for a survey and sinking 
fund, arguing that the demand was only intended as a con- 
dition precedent to their going down to the House of 
Commons to ask for the guarantee. The Canadian Govern- 
ment, therefore, misrepresented the position of the Colonial 
Office in order to justify its own position and want of faith. 
(Hear.) Then this document assumed to rely on the docu- 
ment of the 25th February, as having conveyed the informa- 
tion to this House that the original basis of agreement had 
been abandoned, and also that if some details, if the old 
negotiation conducted in England by Hon. Messrs. Sicotte 
and Howland could be adjusted, the enterprise as agreed 
upon in the Conference of September, 1862, would go on. 
But the February report pronounced no opinion whatever 
as to the abandonment of the basis of September, 1862. 
On the contrary, it assumed throughout it might be induced 
to reconsider some of its objections and recall some of its 
propositions, and intimated as delicately as it could that 
some of the counter propositions of our delegates might be 
recalled. (Hear, hear.) Nor did it give a single hint that 
could be interpreted into an abandonment of the basis 
in question. Moreover, it concluded with the expression 
of a strong hope that the negotiations might yet be carried 
to a successful termination. The present Order in Council 
endeavoured to justify itself by putting the notification of 
the abandonment of the negotiations in the mouth of the 
minute of February, 1862; but it did not dare to quote a 
single sentence in proof. He thought it would be news to 
some hon. members like himself, who at that day were in 
the Government, that they had recorded a minute of Council 



240 BRITISH-AMEEICAN UNION. 

communicated to the Lower Provinces, which would justify 
them in assuming that our Government had abandoned its 
own act of the previous September. 

Hon. Mr. Galt — Was this minute of .February, 1863, 
communicated to the Governments of the Lower Pro- 
vinces ? 

Hon. Mr. McGee replied in the affirmative. They dis- 
tinctly understood that it recognised the old basis, and 
authorised a survey, everything going to show they under- 
stood the very contrary to the scheme being abandoned. 
He thought it was much to be regretted this minute of Sep- 
tember 29th had been adopted, as the character of Her 
Majesty's Ministers in Canada must suffer both in the 
Lower Provinces and in England — much to be regretted 
for the honour of this country. (Hear, hear.) A more 
disingenuous piece of special pleading he had never read ; 
and it was because he had a real desire that our country- 
men along the Bay of Pundy and the Gulf should not have 
a low opinion of this country, that our Government should 
not be considered a pack of tricksters, and that Canada 
should maintain unsullied her public faith, that he con- 
demned the parties responsible for this document, and 
desired to see our Cabinet take a more honest and dignified 
course than in the matter under consideration. If at any 
time Government should find it necessary to abandon 
a particular policy, which it had ratified in a manner par- 
taking of the nature of a solemn contract or treaty, it 
ought to do so frankly and officially, and at the earliest 
possible moment. He had no objection, if Government was 
opposed to any measure, to their getting up frankly and 
saying so, and would not have objected if they had stated 
they did not consider the former negotiations binding, and 
that the whole thing was abandoned ; but if they felt so, 
let them not ask $2 0,000 for a survey to enable themselves 
to gain time, while simultaneously they seek to place the 
responsibility of rejecting the scheme on the Lower Pro- 
vinces in an unfair and disingenuous manner.* 

* After some further discussion of a conversational kind, the concur- 
rence was taken, without dividing the House. 



STATE OF THE COUNTRY ; PUBLIC 
DEFENCES. 

House of Assembly, Quebec, October 13th, 1863. 

On the last day of the session, the question being on 
the third reading of the Militia and Yolunteer Militia 
Bills- 
Mr. McGee said— Before the question is put, Mr. 
Speaker, I desire to address the House for the last time 
this session, when it may be proper to do so, on the subject 
of the state of the defences, provided for, in some sort, in 
these bills, and the other subject inseparably connected 
with our defence, the situation in which, when we quit 
Quebec, we shall leave the Government of the country. 
(Hear, hear.) I think, Sir, it must be admitted by every 
one at all attentive to our politics during the present year 
of grace, that one of our greatest weaknesses is the present 
Government of the country. (Hear, hear.) No doubt 
there are other vulnerable points of attack in our position, 
but so long as we may have a strong Government — a Go- 
vernment acceptable to, and fairly representing all classes 
and sections of the population — a Government thoroughly 
masters of the hearty, unb ought allegiance of the people 
they govern, the main basis of all defence may be considered 
in our possession. Now, have we such a Government, so 
essential to the effective administration of this new Militia 
code, so soon as it becomes law? (Hear, hear.) On 
quitting Quebec, after voting for these measures — after 
voting the large expenditure necessary to put them in 
operation — do we feel assured, can we assure our con- 
stituents, that we have taken the best possible means for 
the preservation of Canada's independence, so long as the 



242 BKITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

greatest danger of all remains unremedied — a weak Go- 
vernment, existing by sufferance, at "the mercy, from day to 
day, of the caprice of two or three individuals ? (Hear, 
hear.) Mr. Speaker, I shall vote for the final passage of 
both the bills now before you, not that I consider this 
Militia Bill the best or the fittest measure for Canada — not 
because I think the Volunteer Bill one which will satisfy, 
or could be expected to satisfy, the Yolunteers of this 
country — (hear, hear) — but because I regard this Govern- 
ment as merely a Provisional Government. (Cheers and 
counter cheers.) It can be considered in no other light, 
with its majorities of one, two, and three. (Cheers.) And 
because, though it is a great misfortune to a country to 
have a merely ad interim Government in critical times, yet 
provision must be made, means and machinery must be 
provided for some degree of defence, even under the im- 
mense disadvantage of placing them in the hands of such a 
Government. (Cheers.) I do not think in the present 
hands the country will get value for the money voted. 

Mr. Scoble — Why do you vote it then? 

Hon. Mr. McGee — As a temporary provision. (Hear, 
hear.) But certainly not because I regard these Acts as 
embodying the best system, nor this Government as pos- 
sessing the confidence of those who are to be called on to 
turn out under these Acts. (Cheers.) In vain we vote 
pay to militiamen, and clothing and arms to volunteers, if 
we cannnot present to the world without, the spectacle of a 
Government calculated to inspire them with respect, and to 
our own people at home such a conduct of affairs as will 
enlist their cheerful and united co-operation in bearing the 
cost and performing the duties of this or any other system 
of Militia organisation. (Hear, hear.) It is necessary, 
most of all now, before we separate for the year, that some 
one should tell the truth plainly to the Government itself, 
that however weakly they may exult in the adroit manage- 
ment by which they have barely escaped defeat, day by day, 
since the first day of the session, at what sacrifices and 
surrenders of principle and public policy they themselves 
know, that, however they might raise a cheer when the 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 243 

clerk, in calling the division, counted one vote above a tie 
— that they have far less of the salutary confidence necessary 
to protect Canadian interests at this moment — at the close 
of the session — than they had even at the opening of the 
session. (Cheers, and cries of " No, no," and " Yes, 
yes.") It is necessary, then, to demonstrate this truth a 
little in detail, from the hour at which we are now arrived 
— the close of the second monMi we have spent, I will not 
say wasted, in Quebec — it is necessary for me to make good 
the rapid decadence of the political hopes formed of the 
Macdonald-Dorion combination of May last — hopes are 
formed alike of " new brooms " and new Governments — 
(laughter) — and this, Mr. Speaker, I shall endeavour to do 
in a very summary manner. It will be remembered by the 
House that the avowed object of the dissolution of May 
last was to enable the country, by electing a new Parlia- 
ment, to remedy the inherent weakness which a too close 
balance of parties was found to have created in the last 
Parliament. (Hear, hear.) That was the avowed object — 
(hear, hear) — and what was the result? These strong 
men, strengthened with so many other strong men, making 
an election with all the advantages of their position, real, 
imaginary, present, and prospective — these strong men 
succeeded in splitting the country, east and west, with a 
diagonal line, throwing two-thirds of the east on one side 
and two-thirds of the west on the other. (Cheers.) They 
succeeded in giving us, as I predicted at the hustings of 
Montreal, "two compact sectional majorities," and thus 
has this session staggered on, while Canada, like Issachar, 
" an ass between two burdens," groaned under the twofold 
infliction. (Cheers.) Let us see how this engine has 
worked for the last two months, and judge if it can con- 
tinue so to work ? (Hear, hear.) It is, perhaps, indelicate 
to refer to the selection made of a candidate for the speaker- 
ship at the commencement of the session, but a sense of 
justice compels me to say a word. I stated in the dis- 
cussion which preceded that election my objections to the 
Ministerial proceedings, in presenting their actual Solicitor- 
General to that chair, and I am more and more confirmed, 

R 2 



244 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

in the opinion that those objections were sonnd ; but the 
election was not a party test. It was carried by eight 
votes, three of whom have since acted consistently with the 
Opposition — (hear, hear) — making a difference of six to be 
deducted from eight, if it had been a party vote. (Hear, 
hear.) But the choice was made, and I will take the 
liberty of adding, after the experience of the past two 
months, that I believe, Sir, your impartial conduct in the 
chair has justly entitled you to the respect and confidence 
of both sides of the House. (Hear, hear.) After the 
election came His Excellency's speech, which contained the 
programme of a full session. (Cries of ec Hear, hear.") The 
programme of a full session, — though ministers in the very 
first debate took the extraordinary liberty of putting their 
own gloss on the speech, by declaring here, in their places, 
that they did not mean what His Excellency said — that all 
they wanted was a Militia Bill and Supply Bill. (Hear, 
hear.) In the Speech from the Throne we were assured 
that measures " interrupted by the dissolution" would be 
submitted to us ; but we heard no more of those measures. 
(Hear, hear.) We were specifically promised in the Speech 
a Bankruptcy Bill, — but we have heard no more of that. 
(Hear, hear.) There was the Patent Law, the Civil Service 
Amendment Act — we heard no more of them. (Hear, 
hear.) Now it is, in my mind, Mr. Speaker, one among 
the things most to be avoided in our system — any weaken- 
ing of the confidence of the country, in the utterances de- 
livered from the Throne — any lessening of the prestige that 
surrounds the weakest of our " three estates. - " If it was 
never intended — as it appeared by the announcement of the 
hon. gentleman at the head of the Government that it never 
had been intended — to stake their ministerial existence on 
any one of those measures, so solemnly promised to us, 
why put their idle and unintentional words in the mouth of 
His Excellency ? (Hear, hear.) . Eor my part, Sir, I rejoice 
to know that the representative of Her Majesty in this 
Province, as far as he has been known to the people, is 
personally and deservedly popular. (Hear, hear.) And it 
is the interest of every Canadian that the Chief Magistrate 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 245 

should stand well with all classes of the people. The Go- 
vernment cannot be safe, the country cannot be safe, if it is 
otherwise, and therefore it is I lay the utmost strength on 
this bad example, of making the representative of the 
Sovereign responsible for official promises, which his ad- 
visers, through their want of nerve, or their want of sup- 
port — it matters nothing which, when the mischief is done 
— never attempt to fulfil to the people. (Hear, hear.) As 
to the amendments to the Militia law promised in the 
Speech, and the hope then expressed that the House would 
receive those amendments in the proper spirit, I think it 
will be admitted, Mr. Speaker, that the House has shown 
the best spirit in the discussions which have taken place on 
that subject. (Hear, hear.) But, Mr. Speaker, let it be 
understood that every voice raised in advocacy of an im- 
proved and extended system of defence, except the Premier's, 
in introducing his amendments, came from the ranks of 
the Opposition. (Cheers, and cries of "Yes, yes," and 
11 No, no," from the Ministerial benches.) Yes ! the Premier 
in these discussions stood alone among his friends. (Cries 
of "Oh! oh!") 

Hon. Mr. Poley — The hon. member for Lincoln as- 
sisted him. (Hear, hear.) 

Hon. Mr. McGee — Yes ; I beg his pardon ; I should 
not have forgotten the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. 
McGiverin). He certainly gave efficient aid, but all 
the rest of the Ministerial following voted in dumb 
show — (hear, hear) — while the hon. members for Kings- 
ton, for Montreal Centre, for Laval, and for Lennox 
and Addington, particularly distinguished themselves in 
those debates ; and all four belonged to the Opposition. 
(Cheers.) If the Government had depended for party 
support to carry even the present measures, they know 
well they would have failed; they know well there are 
enough of their supporters hostile to all such legislation 
to leave them in a minority — two votes changed can do 
it any time— (laughter) — if the Opposition proper and the 
independent members had chosen to make a united stand 
against any one provision of these measures. (Opposition 



248 BKITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

cheers.) This fact every one knows, but the organs of the 
Administration will be careful not to mention it. (Laughter.) 
Now, as to the financial legislation promised us in His 
Excellency's speech, what had become of that ? We were 
promised 

The Hon. J. S. Macdonald here rose to a question of 
order r He wanted to know if the hon. gentleman was 
speaking to the question ? 

Mr. Speaker would read to the hon. member the rule 
on the subject, leaving it to himself to make the appli- 
cation. 

The rule having been read, 

Hon. Mr. McGee resumed. — I am much obliged to you, 
Mr. Speaker, for reminding me of the rule, and I shall 
endeavour to adhere as rigidly to it as possible. (Hear, 
hear.) Certainly, it seems to me a most important consi- 
deration for the security of Canada, whether we have a 
strong Government or a weak one, a popular or an un- 
popular Administration. (Hear, hear.) Notwithstanding 
these excursions, I hope, before I sit down, to make the 
matter pertinent enough to the direct question — our public 
defences. (Hear, hear.) When, then, Sir, as I was about 
to say, we were instructed in the Speech to give our atten- 
tion to bringing " the expenditure of the country within its 
income " — we all, in our simplicity, supposed that the 
Finance Minister was to bring us here some project of taxa- 
tion — some skeleton of a tariff — to effect that object. He 
alone could bring it, but, again, the promise implied in the 
Speech was violated. (Hear, hear.) Moreover, there was 
a paragraph in the Speech which even the hon. gentleman 
(Hon. J. S. Macdonald) can, I suppose, see the relevancy 
of, in relation to our Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Com- 
pany, and its value as a " military work " to " the British 
American Provinces/' But what cares the hon. gentleman 
for British America ? (Hear, hear.) He would far rather 
give his leisure to acting as his own whipper-in. (Laughter.) 
A whipper-in is a necessary Parliamentary agent, an office 
all very well for a junior member; but a Prime Minister 
who is his own whipper-in is hardly likely to trouble his head 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 247 

much about anything concerning the consolidation of British 
America. (Cheers.) I now distinctly charge the hon. 
gentleman and his colleagues with having, from whatever 
motives, so entangled and embroiled the Intercolonial Kail- 
way negotiations with the Lower Provinces, that they have 
not only sought to get rid of the basis agreed on at Quebec, 
in September, 1862, but they have got rid of the survey 
they themselves proposed, and for which, one week ago, we 
voted the proximate sum of $20,000. (Repeated cries of 
"Hear, hear.") That charge I distinctly make, and I intend 
to move for documents which I believe to be in existence, 
which will establish that charge ; I do not hesitate to say, 
these proofs which exist, must, when published, do great 
damage to this country's credit and character. (Hear, 
hear.) 

An Hon. Member — What has that to do with the 
Militia. (Hear, hear.) 

Hon. Mr. McGee — Everything. If we are to have a 
system of defence all the year round, it is most essential 
to know how we are to get to the sea five months of the 
year. (Cheers.) If we are to defend ourselves, or be 
defended from England, we must stand well in England, 
from which we must derive " war's two main hinges — iron 
and gold." 

An Hon. Member — Whose is that ? (Laughter.) 

Hon. Mr. McGee — The phrase is Milton's, who had it 
from Machiavelli, who may have had it, as was popularly 
supposed, from " Old Nick/' (Laughter.) One of the two 
hinges, at least, of all defence, we must derive from England, 
and that will depend on the exhibit our "sturdy beggar" 
—the phrase is his own, not mine — I mean the Minister of 
Finance, may make in England. (Hear, hear.) Now, we 
will imagine the hon. Minister, safely arrived at London, in 
search of his four millions loan (including $900,000 for 
defences), and, though lost in the crowd for a moment, 
we will imagine him emerging into the very sanctuary of 
British credit. He will find before him merchants who 
know how to unite the large knowledge of statesmen with 
the keenest attention to their, own interests, and men not 



248 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

altogether ignorant of what has passed, and is passing, in 
Canada. Imagine the hon. gentleman indicating to such 
men the grounds for future loans to Canada by saying, 
" Our Government went to the country last June, and we 
estimated our expected majority at 20 or 25, but, un- 
fortunately, we found, when the House met, that we 
had two ties the first week. However, we did our best to 
strengthen ourselves by seating in the House a private 
person (Mr. Rankin) as member for Essex. In this, un- 
fortunately, we failed. A week later we underwent the 
ordeal of a want of confidence motion, and narrowly escaped 
by a majority of three in a full House. Immediately, 
seeing that something should be done, we took the mover 
of that motion — a distinguished member of the House — 
and made a Judge of him. (Cheers and laughter.) The 
ungrateful people of his constituency, however, not seeing 
their duty in that light, sent us in his stead a determined 
Oppositionist (Mr. Raymond). So we made nothing by 
giving the Judgeship ; still we think the ingenuity displayed 
entitles our Government to great consideration in England 
— pray, lend us four millions ! " (Laughter.) Imagine 
the hon. gentleman further explaining away the conduct of 
his Government in the Intercolonial negotiations, and being 
obliged to say, for the truth will be in England before him 
— it will stand in his path by the Mersey and the Thames 
— " It is true we proposed a survey to the Lower Provinces 
and the Colonial Secretary, and that both parties accepted 
our proposal ; it is true, we went through the mockery of 
voting an item of $20,000 for that survey, and naming a 
surveyor ; but we found so many of our western supporters 
adverse to it, that we subsequently invented conditions 
which compelled the Lower Provinces to decline going on, 
and the Colonial Office to recall their engineer, for which 
specimen of our good faith we think you ought to put con- 
fidence in us — can you lend us four millions ? " (Renewed 
laughter.) Nor, Mr. Speaker, will the well-known circum- 
stances attendant on the last vote in this House (Mr. 
Gait's) fail to be understood in England? It will be seen 
at once by the observant politicians and capitalists of! 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 249 

England that this is not really the hon. gentleman's 
Government, but the Government of any one or two men 
who, on any test question, happen to have the toothache 
or the rheumatism, to stay away, or to put up their price. 
(Cheers and laughter.) The moral confidence of the 
country in this Administration is utterly gone, and if there 
were to be a general election to-morrow,. not the city of 
Montreal alone, but the whole country, would sweep them 
away like a drift of dry leaves before the October blast. 
(Cheers.) In six months of administration you have de- 
stroyed every hold you ever had on the hearts of the people 
—those brave hearts, whether French, English, Scotch, or 
Irish, without whose confidence you will build up paper 
defences all in vain. (Hear.) This fact, too, will be 
known right well in England, as the hon. gentleman will 
find, when he gets there, seeking for his four millions, 
and pleading that $900,000 of it is for defence. To make 
the country secure and strong — to inspire with respect our 
enemies, if we have enemies — we must have a strong 
Government, and an honest Government. (Hear, hear.) 
I accept these bills now to be read for the third time, not 
because they are the best possible Militia legislation, but 
because they are the best we can get from this Provisional 
Government. But will you go on ruling the country with 
a majority of one, two, or three ? Will you weaken, and 
expose, and imperil the country by such a course, at such a 
time ? Or do you expect, by private bartering with indi- 
vidual members, to win over, during the recess, one, or 
two, or three more ? In Lower Canada — who is the Lower 
Canadian traitor who can face his constituents wearing your 
livery? (Cheers.) It is, Mr. Speaker, some satisfaction 
to many members, like myself, who do not desire the resto- 
ration to office of the old coalition (hear, hear), and who 
just as little desire the continuance in office of the hon. 
gentlemen now in power (hear, hear), that in quitting 
Quebec we have made some improvements, to say the least, 
on the existing Militia law ; while, at the same time, every 
member of this House, not in the trammels of the Admi- 
nistration, must know and feel, that the prime want of our 



250 BKITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

military as of our civil strength — the cardinal want of a 
strong Government — must be supplied — or we must con- 
tinue to see the credit and character of Canada suffer, 
governed, as she has been governed, by majorities made up 
of two or three votes, obtained, as they have been obtained, 
under our own eyes, from the 1 3th of August last to the 
present moment. (Loud cheers,) 



INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY DIPLOMACY. 

House of Assembly, Quebec, March 10th, 1864. 

Mr. McGee, in rising to move the motion, of which he 
had given notice the first day of the session, for the produc- 
tion of papers in relation to the Intercolonial Railway and 
Survey negotiations, said : I have already, Mr. Speaker, 
expressed my conviction — in the debate on the Address — 
that the recent negotiations as to the Intercolonial Railway 
and Survey, I had reason to fear were not conducted in a 
manner creditable to this country, and I have now before 
me on this desk the most melancholy proofs that that con- 
viction was well founded. (Hear, hear.) As the most 
frequent and sustained, and by far the ablest and most im- 
portant correspondence that has ever arisen among these 
Provinces themselves, the series of papers sent down to us 
last Session, and those sent to the Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick Houses now sitting, deserve the careful review 
of every member of this House. An article of the organ 
of the Administration of this day, denouncing the portion 
of that correspondence sustained by His Excellency Governor 
Gordon of New Brunswick, as "petulant," "ignorant," 
"foolish," and "absurdly untrue" — what I cannot but call 
an audacious article — setting a very bad example in the 
tone of speaking of persons in His Excellency's position — a 
tone I should be very sorry to see adopted towards our 
own Governor-General — gives a very immediate import- 
ance to this correspondence to which I now entreat the 
attention of the House. (Hear, hear.) It will be remem- 
bered that the date of the last paper, in the return sent 
down to us last October, was September 8th. There was, 
indeed, another paper, the Canadian Memorandum of Sep- 



252 



BKITISH-AMEMCAN UNION. 



tember 29th, read in this House, irregularly, and without 
due consideration, as I think, by the Hon. Premier the very 
day of its adoption, but it is not yet formally before this 
House. 

Hon. J. S. Macdonald — It was sent that day by 
mail. 

Hon. Mr. McGee— Sent by mail ! (Hear, hear.) That 
is the way we treat our allies in the other Colonies. (Hear, 
hear.) The Nova Scotia return includes the paper of 
September 29 th, however, and brings down the series to 
the Canadian Memorandum of December 20th, while the 
~New Brunswick return, which reached us only yesterday, 
gives us all the subsequent papers, down to the Order in 
Council appointing Mr. Sandford Fleming on the 20th 
February last — the day after the meeting of Parliament, 
observe — to make the entire survey on Canada's " own 
responsibility and at our sole expense" — and the acknow- 
ledgment of that step made by New Brunswick, under date 
February 29th, — only ten days ago. Now, unless our 
Government has something behind, something which it has 
not communicated to the other Provinces — and the negotia- 
tion being in common, I presume that all the important 
documents are in possession of all the parties alike, — we have 
thus, the hon. gentlemen on the Treasury Benches have in 
their hands the means of refuting, or we of establishing, 
the most serious charge that can be made against any 
Government, that is, the violation of its plighted, public 
faith. (Hear, hear.) I have read, Mr. Speaker, every 
line of these Intercolonial papers, — I have read some of 
them for the first time within the last twenty-four hours, — 
and although it is no pleasure to me to enjoy a personal or 
party triumph over the hon. gentlemen, I cannot for the 
sake "of the great public interest at stake, refrain from 
repeating my full conviction that our part in the recent 
correspondence is not very creditable to Canada, nor such 
as to establish the good faith of our Government in the 
entire transaction. (Hear, hear.) When in the Lower Pro- 
vinces last vacation, I maintained, publicly and privately, 
the good faith of the delegation to England, and the Govern- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 253 

ment that sent them there; I maintain so still; but it does 
now seem to me, from a careful review of the whole series 
of these papers, that the new line adopted by the new 
Canadian Government, — in which one of those delegates 
and four of the former Government now hold seats, — was 
sufficient to throw a retrospective shadow of uncertainty 
over the entire good faith, even of the delegates themselves. 
(Hear, hear.) The other Provinces would naturally say, 
when objections such as the sinking fund, peculiar to 
Canada, were started to the common project; when a survey 
to facilitate the project in its latest form was proposed, and 
when that joint-survey was declined by us unless the pro- 
ject itself was to be considered by all parties as obsolete 
and at an end; — the other Provinces, seeing these windings 
and turnings taken within twelve months under the lead of 
the same Prime Minister, with several of the same col- 
leagues, would naturally say, "What faith can be placed 
on the stability, what reliance can be placed in the pro- 
mises, of these Canadians ?" I say that was a very natural 
conclusion for the other Provinces to arrive at ; and that it 
has taken full possession of their minds, I need only refer 
to the very marked letters of Lieutenant-Governor Gordon 
to His Excellency Lord Monck, especially the letters of the 
7th and 27 th October last. These letters, we learn from 
this New Brunswick return, "received the approval" of 
the Duke of Newcastle, and whenever they are read, I 
have no doubt they will be admired for their high-spirited 
assertion of the obb'gations resting on all the Provincial 
Governments as to this negotiation, and the vigorous English 
in which they are expressed. If I particularise these, and 
some other papers, it is not, I repeat, from any satisfaction 
I feel in the discussion ; it is not to answer the insolent 
aspersions of the Mercury of to-day ; it is not to fasten 
conviction on the hon. gentlemen; but it is to turn the light 
of the past upon the present, — it is with a hope, however 
extravagant, so to fasten public attention on this Inter- 
colonial diplomacy, that it may not be possible hereafter 
for any Canadian Administration, if any such could be 
found, to play the double game at Halifax or Erederickton, 



254 BRITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

in the name of Canada, without being called to answer 
for it to the Parliament of Canada. (Cheers.) I must 
say a word here on behalf of a gentleman who has 
shown throughout these negotiations signal temper and 
ability. I mean my friend, Mr. Tilley, of New Bruns- 
wick, on whom the organs of our Administration have 
endeavoured to throw the entire responsibility of delaying 
the Survey. (Hear, hear.) Now, the fact is, as these 
documents show beyond a shadow of doubt, none of the 
negotiators has been more anxious than Mr. Tilley — as 
certainly no one of the Provinces is more at stake than 
New Brunswick — in this undertaking. The accident of 
politics threw Mr. Howe out of public life for the mo- 
ment in his own Province, soon after the return of the 
joint delegation from England, and the Imperial Govern- 
ment — (I am sure every British American will rejoice at it) 
— having provided an honourable retreat for Mr. Howe, 
in the Imperial office of Eishery Commissioner, this Nova 
Scotian revolution — by which, whatever his programme may 
have been, I cannot but feel that our provincial politics 
have lost one of their foremost exponents, — this change, 
I say, naturally forced Mr. Tilley into the foreground in 
the maintenance of the Quebec compact of September, 
1862. Mr. Tilley has performed his part, in my judg- 
ment, with great ability, and an extraordinary command 
of temper ; and when the great project has succeeded, as 
succeed some good day it will, to no man can it be more 
indebted than to Mr. Tilley, for having nursed it through 
the most critical period of its existence. (Hear, hear.) 
Now, Sir, to return to this curious correspondence. The 
last document brought down to us was, the House remem- 
bers, the Memorandum of our Council, read here on the 
29th September, the day of its adoption, in vindication of 
the Premier, by himself, and before it could be communi- 
cated to the other parties. That proceeding I then thought, 
and still think, irregular and disorderly; but let that 
pass. The document, however, I may observe, en passant, 
is signed in these papers (N. B. Series, p. 18), "J. S. 
McD." — and not, as is our Canadian custom, by the Clerk 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 255 

of the Council. What that means, if it means anything, I 
am unable to say, but I call to it the attention of the other 
lion, members of the Government now in the House. 
(Hear, hear.) Now, the first discovery which the Lower 
Provinces seem to have made of the existence of a double 
influence in our Council, finds expression in a despatch of 
Governor Gordon to the Duke of Newcastle,, in August 
last, and is thus enlarged upon in his subsequent despatch 
of the 28th September : — " The Provincial Secretary of 
this Province, Hon. S. L. Tilley, together with the Provin- 
cial Secretary of Nova Scotia, were at that time on their 
way to Quebec for the purpose of arranging the details 
connected with the commencement of the Survey ; and I 
felt that on their learning what was said to have fallen from 
Mr. Dorion, they might probably be disposed to abandon 
further negotiation. This, it appeared to me, would be 
exactly that which would be most desired by the Canadian 
Government, supposing them to be anxious to escape from 
their obligations ; and I accordingly wrote to Mr. Tilley to 
the effect that, whilst I thought that, if the Canadian 
Government as a body repudiated the engagements of Sep- 
tember, 1862, or refused to bear five- twelfths of the expenses 
of the Survey, he would have no alternative but to refuse 
to take any further step, and should return here imme- 
diately ; yet, on the other hand, I saw advantages in pledg- 
ing the Canadian Cabinet to the practical adoption of the share 
of expenditure contemplated in the original agreement, and 
urged that the arrangements should proceed so long as it was 
possible to assume that the Government of Canada intended, as 
a Government, to respect the engagements into which it had 
entered." (N.B. Series, page 14.) — This despatch, observe, 
was sent off to Downing Street after Mr. Tilley's return 
from Quebec to Prederickton, while we were yet sitting 
here, and were assured that all His Excellency's advisers 
w r ere fully agreed on their Intercolonial policy. (Hear, 
hear.) Yet what do we find Governor Gordon officially 
stating to the Duke of Newcastle on Mr. Tilley's report — 
that he found some of the Canadian Ministers " absolutely 
repudiating, and others hesitating, to acknowledge the 



256 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

obligations of September, 1862/' — a very dubious position, 
as the Lower Province statesmen inevitably felt. The 
Memorandum of the 29th September, read in this House 
by the Premier, intended to define the exact position, at 
that time, of the Canadian Cabinet, was communicated to 
New Brunswick, and drew from Governor Gordon the re- 
markable letter to Lord Monck, of October 7th, which 
formally inaugurated "the good faith" controversy — a 
controversy which seems ended only by Mr. Fleming's 
appointment, ten days ago, and the gleam of sunshine 
which now seems to have fallen upon the path of the 
project — or, at least, upon the prospect of the project. I 
shall not go into the particulars of the good faith discussion, 
in which we find His Excellency compelled by the exigencies 
of the case to defend his own honour, while endeavouring 
to justify his advisers; in which we find questions — 
amounting almost to questions of veracity — raised between 
these high officers administering these neighbouring Go- 
vernments; questions which never ought to have been 
raised, never could have been raised, if a weak spirit, un- 
able to wield, and unable to resign office, had not presided 
in the Executive Council, and led the deliberations of this 
House, with a pitiful salvage of one per cent, of its 
members. (Cheers.) "When our own return places the 
papers I have quoted from the New Brunswick official 
return in the hands of all the members of this House (the 
return for which I am now moving), I shall be prepared, if 
necessary, to go into every detail of that ingenious series of 
expedients — the gain-time-at-any-price-policy, pursued by 
the present Administration towards the sister Provinces. 
(Hear, hear.) I shall content myself to-day with calling 
attention to one other fact involved in these Nova Scotia 
and New Brunswick documents. The House will re- 
member that last year our Government would not go on 
with the joint Survey, of which we were then to pay five- 
twelfths only, unless Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 
expressly renounced the Quebec compact of September, 
1862. Well, what are we doing now? We are now 
going on with it at " our sole expense" though neither of 






SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAELIAMENT. 257 

tlie Lower Provinces have made any act of renunciation. 
So far from it, that the last document of the Series now 
before me, the Minute of the New Brunswick Council of 
the 29th of February, ten days ago, transmitted the same 
day to our Government, expressly reserves to that Province 
the right to reject altogether the survey now so uncon- 
ditionally undertaken by Canada. " The Committee," says 
this minute, " wish it to be distinctly understood that the 
Government of New Brunswick are not to be considered in 
any way necessarily committed to the conclusions at which 
Mr. Fleming may arrive. Any survey, to be binding upon 
them, must be conducted according to the terms of the Act 
passed at the last session of the Legislature of New Bruns- 
wick, authorising the construction of the Intercolonial 
Railway." So that we lost a year, and the surveyor lost a 
season, in seeking for a renunciation which is now aban- 
doned, and in higgling over our proportion of an expendi- 
ture of which we have at length undertaken the whole ! 
(Hear, hear.) This is, in short, the sum and substance of 
the negotiations of the last year and a-half, conducted on 
our part under the auspices of the present head of the Ad- 
ministration. (Hear, hear.) It is, so far as Canada is 
concerned, divisible into two parts, that part maintained from 
September, 1862, to May, 1863, by the Macdonald-Sicotte 
Ministry, and that party since maintained by the Macdonald- 
Dorion Ministry. The questiou of good faith arises only 
with the latter, for although the delegation to England was 
our work, I utterly deny that there was any understanding, 
tacit or explicit, that the basis of the Quebec compact was 
abandoned during our time. These papers bear me fully 
out in that denial. It was from an announcement made in 
his speech on the opening of this House, in August last, by 
the Hon. Attorney-General East (Mr. Dorion), as is shown 
by Governor Gordon's despatch of the 29th of that month 
to the Duke of Newcastle, that the Lower Provinces took 
alarm, and that New Brunswick took up the gauntlet for 
plighted faith and Intercolonial honour. (Hear, hear.) 
Nova Scotia has not been equally forward, because Nova 
Scotia has been under an Administration ad interim for 



258 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

several months, and her new Cabinet are busied about their 
new policy. But, so far as she has given it, the testimony 
of Nova Scotia, as to past transactions, is entirely with 
New Brunswick, and against us, as having unworthily 
defeated the project. 

Hon. Mr. Brown. — The best thing they ever did. 
(Hear, hear.) 

Hon. Mr. McGee. — The best thing they ever did ! I 
regret to hear the lion, member for South Oxford express 
so shocking a sentiment — that the best thing a Govern- 
ment ever did was to meet in conference with two other 
Provinces to sign an agreement, and then violate that 
agreement without meeting Parliament or putting the ques- 
tion to a test. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Speaker, I fear, I deeply 
and sincerely fear, that the conduct of our Government has 
inflicted a blow on the vitals of this project, which even 
Mr. Fleming and his theodolite cannot cure. I received 
but yesterday — by the same mail that brought us these 
papers — a letter from a valued friend, a member of the 
Nova Scotian Assembly (not a Minister), a letter, in which 
he says : — " The Intercolonial is as dead as a door-nail — 
Canada killed it." I trust my good friend the writer, 
whom I have no objection to name — Mr. Tobin, member 
for Halifax — is mistaken, but I fear for the worst. I fear 
we have not only killed it, but that, by our evil Ministrj r , 
we have forced into existence a brood of local projects in 
both Provinces, which will divide their councils, and devour 
their substance, for many a day to come. (Hear, hear.) 
I say here deliberately, and in possession of as full informa- 
tion from below as Ministers themselves have, if this chance 
of a Canadian outlet to the sea through British territory is 
for long, or for ever, closed against us, an awful responsi- 
bility rests upon His Excellency's present advisers. (Hear, 
hear.) Will despatching Mr. Fleming in rude haste to 
head- waters of the Eestigouche, or the valley of the 
Tobique, restore the project to where it stood, in the list 
of possibilities, twelve months ago ? I say it will not — it 
cannot. If our Government really means to restore the 
project to the region of reality, let them legislate. Let 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 259 

them introduce a bill authorising either the Quebec terms,, 
or a sum not exceeding a certain amount to be devoted to 
this enterprise, with a proviso concerning the result of the 
survey. This would look like business — this would look 
like good faith — and for this action, and less will not save 
the project, there is still abundant time left, if our Ministers 
really desire to do something practical, to reassure and 
regain the place we have lost in the confidence of the 
Maritime Provinces and the Home Government. There 
are, I shall never cease to repeat it, some 800,000 of our 
fellow-countrymen between us and the Atlantic — there is 
wanting an iron link of 350 to 400 miles to connect us 
with our countrymen, the Atlantic, and the rest of the 
Empire. It is a great project, and never can be carried 
without courage and firmness on the part of the several 
Provinces. Canada, the leading Province in every other 
respect, ought to be the leader in point of enterprise ; and 
it is, therefore, that I urge upon Ministers — promising 
them my humble support for any such measure — to go a 
step beyond the mere appointment of a Surveyor, and to 
give us, and all concerned in the result, a Parliamentary 
guarantee for our Provincial good faith in this undertaking. 
If you refuse some such guarantee, after all that has hap- 
pened, I repeat you will not remove, but confirm suspicion 
— you will not revive, but you will still more deeply bury 
your project; — you will remove it from the dead-house, 
only to lay it finally in its grave. (Hear, hear.) I have 
spoken of a brood of projects which have sprung up, in the 
Lower Provinces, on the fall of the Intercolonial : — 

" For many have sprung from the one lying low. 
Like twigs from the fell'd forest tree " 

but I must except one project, which reflects the greatest 
credit on all the parties — to which we, in Canada, cannot 
be indifferent. Laying aside all partisan and personal con- 
siderations, the leading spirits of the Lower Provinces, not 
fearing to venture into broader channels than their own in- 
ternal politics afford — have simultaneously proposed to 
reunite Nova Scotia, New Brunswick., and the Island of 

s 2 



260 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

Prince Edward — into one great maritime community — with 
one tariff, one treasury, and one legislature. (Hear, hear.) 
It is impossible not to admire the superiority to mere sec- 
tionalism exhibited in this proposal, and I, for one, humbly 
and sincerely pray to God, that for their own sakes, and 
for our sake, they may succeed, and the sooner the better. 
(Hear, hear.) I could have wished, as I have always advo- 
cated, that steps might, ere this, have been taken for the 
initiation of the larger union of all the Provinces ; but if 
we are just now barren of the wise and generous spirit of 
compromise that seeks to restore the ancient Arcadia to its 
old integrity, we can have at least the modest merit of 
admiring in others what we may not possess within our- 
selves. (Cheers.) This will be a union — unlike our exist- 
ing union — brought about by the internal action of the 
sections themselves, with the sanction of the Crown; it 
will be a union unheralded by any great civil commotion — 
and one, which it is not presumptuous to foretell, that will 
consecrate the memory of its authors to lasting remem- 
brance. (Cheers.) I could not forbear, Mr. Speaker, 
since reading the respective speeches of the Governors of 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, from expressing my 
hearty admiration of the wise prevision they exhibit in this 
recommendation, and in adding my humble hope, as a 
Canadian representative, that the auspicious union they 
now have proposed may go on to a most fortunate 
fruition. 

The hon. gentleman concluded by moving for the returns 
of which he had given notice on the first day of the 
Session. 



SPEECH ON MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO 
HER MAJESTY IN FAVOUR OF CON- 
FEDERATION. 

Legislative Assembly, Thursday, February 9th, 1865. 

The order of the day for resuming the adjourned debate 
on the proposed Address to Her Majesty, on the subject of 
the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 
having been called — 

Mr. McGee said : — Mr. Speaker, I rise to endeavour to 
fulfil the promise made in my name last evening by the 
Lower Canadian leader of this House. After the four 
speeches that have already been delivered from this quarter 
of the House, it may very well be supposed that little of 
essential importance remains to be said. On Monday the 
Attorney- General West, in exposing the case for the Go- 
vernment, in moving this Address to Her Majesty, went 
very fully through all the items of the resolutions agreed 
upon at the Quebec Conference, and gave us a full analysis 
of the whole project, with his own constitutional commen- 
taries upon the proceedings of that body. On the next 
evening, the Attorney-General East gave us his views also, 
treating chiefly of the difficulties in the way of union in 
Lower Canada. The same night, my honourable friend, the 
Minister of Finance, gave us a financial view of the whole 
subject ; and last evening the Hon. President of the Coun- 
cil gave us another extended financial and political address, 
with some arguments from " the Upper Canadian point of 
view," as the phrase is. It may well, therefore, seem that 
after these speeches little of essential importance remains 
to be stated. Still this subject is so vast, the project before 



262 BKITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

the House is so vast, and comprehends within it so many 
objects of interest, the atmosphere that surrounds a subject 
of this importance is so subtle and fluctuating, that there 
may be, I am fain to believe, a little joiner-work still left 
to do — there may be a hiatus here and there to fill up ; and 
although, as far as what is called " the preliminary case " 
is concerned, the question might perhaps very well have 
rested with the four speeches already delivered, there may 
be some slight additional contribution made, and, such as 
it is, in my own humble way, I propose to make it to-night. 
We all remember that in the nursery legend of the Three 
Kings of Cologne, Caspar brought myrrh, and Melchior 
incense, and Baltassar gold, but I am afraid my contribu- 
tion will be less valuable than any of these, yet such as it 
is I cheerfully bring it, particularly when there are so many 
in this and the other provinces who would like to know 
what my own views are in the present position of the 
general question. 

With your approbation, Sir, and the forbearance of the 
House, I will endeavour to treat this subject in this way : — 
First, to give some slight sketch of the history of the ques- 
tion ; then to examine the existing motives which ought to 
prompt us to secure a speedy union of these provinces; 
then to speak of the difficulties which this question has 
encountered before reaching its present fortunate stage ; 
then to say something of the mutual advantages, in a social 
rather than political point of view, which these provinces 
will have in their union ; and, lastly, to add a few words on 
the Federal principle in general ; when I shall have done. 
In other words, I propose to consider the question of Union 
mainly from within, and, as far as possible, to avoid going 
over the ground already so fully and so much better occu- 
pied by hon. friends who have already spoken upon the 
subject. 

My hon. friend, the member for Hochelaga, thought he 
did a very clever thing, the other evening, when he disen- 
tombed an old newspaper article of mine, entitled " A New 
Nationality/' and endeavoured to fix on me the paternity 
of the phrase — destined to become prophetic — which was 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 263 

emplo) T ed by a very distinguished personage, in the Speech 
from the Throne, at the opening of the Session. I do 
happen to remember the article alluded to as one of my 
first essays in political writing in Canada ; but I am quite 
sure that the almost-forgotten publication in which it 
appeared was never known, even by name, to the illustrious 
person who delivered the speech on that occasion. But I 
will own, when I saw my bantling held up to the admira- 
tion of the House in the delicate an'd fostering hands of the 
hon. member for Hochelaga, I was not ashamed of it ; on the 
contrary, perhaps, there was some tingling of parental pride 
when I saw what, ten years ago, I pointed out as the true 
position for these colonies to take, likely to be adopted by 
all the colonies under such favourable circumstances. I do 
not think it ought to be made a matter of reproach to me, 
or a cause for belittleing the importance of the subject, 
that, ten years ago, I used the identical phrase employed in 
the Speech from the Throne. The idea itself is a good one, 
and it may have floated through the minds of many men, 
and received intellectual hospitality even from the honour- 
able member for Hochelaga himself. One is reminded by 
this sort of thing of Puff in the Critic. " Two people hap- 
pened," Puff says, "to hit upon the same thought, and 
Shakspeare made use of it first — that 's all," My honour- 
able friend in this respect may be the Shakspeare of the new 
nationality. If there is anything in the article he has read 
to the House which is deserving of disapprobation, he is 
particeps criminis, and equally blameable, if not more 
blameable, than myself. He is, indeed, the older offender, 
and I bow to him in that character with all proper humility, 
Eeally, Mr. Speaker, the attempt to fix the parentage of 
this child of many fathers, is altogether absurd and futile. 
It is almost as ridiculous as the attempt to fix the name of 
this new Confederation, in advance of the decision of the 
Gracious Lady to whom the matter is to be referred. I 
have read in one newspaper, published in a western city, 
not less than a dozen attempts of this nature. One indi- 
vidual chooses Tuponia, and another Hochelaga, as a suit- 
able name for the new nationality. Now, I would ask any 



264 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION". 

honourable member of this House how he would feel if he 
woke up some fine morning, and found himself, instead of 
a Canadian, a Tuponian or Hochelagander ? (Laughter.) 
I think we may leave,, for the present, the discussion of the 
name as well as the origin of the new system proposed : 
when the Confederation has a place among the nations of 
the world, and opens a new page in history, it will be time 
enough to look into its antecedents ; and when it has 
reached that stage, there are a few men who, having strug- 
gled for it in its earlier difficulties, will then deserve to be 
honourably mentioned. I shall not be guilty of the bad 
taste of personally complimenting those with whom I have 
the honour to be associated ; but when we reach the stage 
of research, which lies far beyond the stage of decision 
in these affairs, there are some names that ought not to be 
forgotten. 

So far back as the year 1800, the Hon. Mr. Uniacke, a 
leading politician in Nova Scotia at that date, submitted a 
scheme of Colonial Union to the Imperial authorities. In 
1815, Chief Justice Sewell, whose name will be well remem- 
bered as a leading lawyer of this city, and a far-sighted 
politician, submitted a similar scheme. In 1822, Sir John 
Beverley Eobinson, at the request of the Colonial Office, 
submitted a project of the same kind; and I need not 
refer to the report of Lord Durham, on Colonial Union, in 
1839. These are all memorable, and some of them are 
great names. If we have dreamed a dream of Union (as 
some of you gentlemen say), it is at least worth while 
remarking that a dream which has been dreamed by such 
wise and good men y may, for aught we know, or you know, 
have been a sort of vision — a vision foreshadowing forth- 
coming natural events in a clear intelligence : a vision — I 
say it without irreverence, for the event concerns the lives 
of millions liviug, and yet to come — resembling those seen 
by the Daniels and Josephs of old, foreshadowing the trials 
of the future, the fate of tribes and peoples, the rise and 
fall of dynasties. But the immediate history of the measure 
is sufficiently wonderful, without dwelling on the remoter 
predictions of so many wise men. Whoever, in 1862, or 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 265 

even in 1863, would have told us that we should see even 
what we see in these seats by which I stand — such a repre- 
sentation of interests acting together, would be accounted, 
as our Scotch friends say, "half daft;" and whoever, in 
the Lower Provinces about the same time, would have ven- 
tured to foretell the composition of their delegations which 
sat with us under this roof last October, would probably 
have been considered equally demented. (Laughter.) Bat 
the thing came about ; and if those gentlemen who have 
had no immediate hand in bringing it about, and, there- 
fore, naturally felt less interest in the project than we 
who had, will only give us the benefit of the doubt — 
will only assume that we are not all altogether wrong- 
headed — we hope to show them still farther, though we 
think we have already shown them satisfactorily, that we 
are by no means without reason in entering on this enter- 
prise. I submit, however, we may very well dismiss the 
antecedent history of the question for the present : it grew 
from an unnoticed feeble plant, to be a stately and flourish- 
ing tree ; and, for my part, any one that pleases may say 
he made the tree grow, if I can only have hereafter my fair 
share of the shelter and the shade. (Cheers.) But in the 
present stage of the question, the first real stage of its suc- 
cess — the thing that gave importance to theory in men's 
minds — was the now celebrated despatch, signed by two 
members of this Government and an honourable gentleman 
formerly their colleague (Hon. Mr. Eoss), a member of the 
other House. I refer to the despatch of 1858. The recom- 
mendations in that despatch lay dormant until revived by 
the Constitutional Committee of last Session, which led to 
the Coalition, which led to the Quebec Conference, which 
led to the draft of the Constitution now on our table, which 
will lead, I am fain to believe, to the union of all these 
provinces. (Hear, hear.) At the same time that we men- 
tion the distinguished politicians, I think we ought not to 
forget those zealous and laborious contributors to the public 
press, who, although not associated with governments, and 
not themselves at the time in politics, yet greatly contri- 
buted to give life and interest to this question, and, indi- 



266 BRITISH- AMEBIC AN UNION. 

rectly, to bring it to the happy position in which it now 
stands. Of those gentlemen I will mention two. I do 
not know whether honourable gentlemen of this House have 
seen some letters on Colonial Union, written in 1855 — the 
last addressed to the late Duke of Newcastle — by Mr. P. S. 
Hamilton, an able public writer of Nova Scotia, and the 
present Gold Commissioner of that province ; but I take 
this opportunity of bearing my testimony to his well- 
balanced judgment, political sagacity, and the skilful hand- 
ling the subject received from him at a very early period. 
(Hear, hear.) There is another little book written in 
English, six or seven years ago, to which I must refer. It 
is a pamphlet, which met with an extraordinary degree of 
success, entitled Nova Britannia, by my honourable friend, 
the member for South Lanark (Mr. Morris) ; and as he has 
been one of the principal agents in bringing into existence 
the present Government, which is now carrying out the 
idea embodied in his book, I trust he will forgive me if I • 
take the opportunity, although he is present, of reading a 
single sentence, to show how far he was in advance, and 
how true he was to the coming event which we are now 
considering. At page 57 of his pamphlet — which I hope 
will be reprinted among the political miscellanies of the 
provinces when we are one country and one people — I find 
this paragraph : — 

" The dealing with the destinies of a future Britannic 
empire, the shaping its course, the laying its foundations 
broad and deep, and the erecting thereon a noble and 
enduring superstructure, are indeed duties that may well 
evoke the energies of our people, and nerve the arms and 
give power and enthusiasm to the aspirations of all true 
patriots. The very magnitude of the interests involved, 
will, I doubt not, elevate many amongst us above the 
demands of mere sectionalism, and enable them to evince 
sufficient comprehensiveness of mind to deal in the spirit of 
real statesmen with issues so momentous, and to originate 
and develop a national line of commercial and general 
policy, such as will prove adapted to the wants and exi- 
gencies of our position." (Hear, hear.) 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAELIAMENT. 267 

• There are many other excellent passages in the work, 
but I will not detain the House with many quotations. 
The spirit that animates the whole will be seen from the 
extract I have read."* But whatever the private writer in 
his closet may have conceived, whatever even the individual 
statesman may have designed, so long as the public mind 
was uninterested in the adoption, even in the discussion of 
a change in our position so momentous as this, the Union 
of these separated Provinces, the individual laboured in 
vain — perhaps, Sir, not wholly in vain, for although his 
work may not have borne fruit then, it was kindling a fire 
that would ultimately light up the whole political horizon 
and herald the dawn of a better day for our country and 
our people. Events stronger than advocacy, events stronger 
than men, have come in at last like the fire behind the in- 
visible writing to bring out the truth of these writings and 
to impress them upon the mind of every thoughtful man 
who has considered the position and probable future of 
these Provinces. (Cheers.) Before I go farther into the 
details of my subject, I will take this opportunity of con- 
gratulating this House and the public of all the Provinces 
upon the extraordinary activity of the provincial mind since 
this subject has become the leading topic of discussion in 
the Maritime, and what I may call relatively to them, the 
Inland Provinces. It is astonishing how active intelligence 
has been in all these communities since the subject has been 
fairly launched. I have watched with great attention the 
expression of public opinion in the Lower Provinces as 
well as in our own; and I am rejoiced to find that even 
from the smallest of the Provinces I have read writings 
and speeches which would do no discredit to older and 
more cultivated communities — articles and speeches worthy 
of any press and of any audience. The provincial mind, it 
would seem, under the inspiration of a great question, 
leaped, at a single bound, out of the slough of mere mer- 
cenary struggles for office, and took post on the high and 

* Dr. J. C. Tache's excellent brochure, entitled ' ' Des Provinces 
d'Amerique du Nord et d'une Union Federate," published at Quebec iu 
1858, also deserves honourable mention. 



268 BKITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

honourable ground from which alone this great subject can 
be taken in, in all its dimensions — they rose at once to the 
true dignity of this discussion with an elasticity that does 
honour to the communities that have exhibited it. (Cheers.) 
We find in the journals and in the speeches of public men 
in the Lower Provinces a discussion of the first principles 
of government, a discussion of the principles of constitu- 
tional law, and an intimate knowledge and close application 
of the leading facts in constitutional history, which gives to 
me at least the satisfaction and assurance that, if we never 
went a step farther in this matter, we have put an end for 
the present, and I hope for long, to bitterer and smaller 
controversies. We have given the people some sound 
mental food, and to every man who has a capacity for 
discussion we have given a topic upon which he can fitly 
exercise his powers, no longer gnawing at a file and wasting 
his abilities in the poor effort at advancing the ends of some 
paltry faction or party. I can congratulate this House and 
Province and the Provinces below, that such is the case, 
and I may add also, with satisfaction, that the various 
orators and writers seem speaking or writing as if in the 
visible presence of all the colonies. (Hear, hear.) They 
are no longer hole-and-corner celebrities : they seem to 
think that their words will be scanned and weighed afar 
off as well as at home. We have, I believe, several 
hundred celebrities in Canada — my friend, Mr. Morgan, I 
believe, has made out a list of them — (laughter)— but they 
are no longer now local celebrities ; if celebrities at all 
they must be celebrities for British North America; for 
every one of the speeches made by them on this subject is 
watched in all the Provinces, and in point of fact by the 
mere appearance of political union, we have laid the lines 
of a mental union among the people of all these Provinces ; 
and many men now speak with a comprehensiveness which 
formerly did not characterise them, when they were watched 
only by their own narrow and struggling section, and 
weighed only according to a stunted local standard. (Hear, 
hear). Federation, I hope, may supply to all .our public 
men just ground for uniting in nobler and more profitable 






SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 269 

contests than those which have signalised the past. (Hear, 
hear.) We, on this side, Mr. Speaker, propose for that 
better future our plan of Union; and, if you will allow me, 
I shall go over what appear to me the principal motives 
which exist at present for that Union. My hon. friend 
the Finance Minister mentioned the other evening several 
strong motives for union — free access to the sea, an 
extended market, breaking down of hostile tariffs, a more 
diversified field for labour and capital, our enhanced credit 
with England, and our greater effectiveness when united, 
for assistance in time of danger. (Cheers.) The Hon. Pre- 
sident of the Council, last night also enumerated several 
motives for union in relation to the commercial advantages 
which will flow from it, and other powerful reasons which 
may be advanced in favour of it. But the motives to such 
a comprehensive change as we propose, must be mixed 
motives — partly commercial, partly military, and partly 
political ; and I shall go over a few — nor strained or simu- 
lated — motives which must move many people of all these 
Provinces, and which are rather of a social, or strictly 
speaking, political, than of a financial kind. In the first 
place, I echo what was stated in the speech last night of 
my hon. friend, the President of the Council — that we 
cannot stand still ; we cannot stave off some great change ; 
we cannot stand alone — Province apart from Province — if 
we would ; and that we are in a state of political transition. 
All, even honourable gentlemen who are opposed to this 
description of union, admit that we must do something, 
and that that something must not be a mere temporary expe- 
dient. We are compelled, by warning voices from within 
and without, to make a change and a great change. We 
all, with one voice who are Unionists, declare our con- 
viction that we cannot go on as we have gone ; but you, 
who are all anti-Unionists, say — " Oh ! that is begging the 
question ; you have not yet proved that.'" Well, Mr. 
Speaker, what proofs do the gentlemen want ? I presume 
there are the influences which determine any great 
change in the course of any individual or State. First — 
His patron, owner, employer, protector, ally, or friend ; or, 



270 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

in our politics, " Imperial connection." Secondly — His 
partner, comrade, or fellow -labourer, or near neighbour ; in 
our case, the United States. And, thirdly, — The man him- 
self, or the Province itself. Now, all three have concurred 
to w r arn and force us into a new course of conduct. What 
are these warnings ? We have had at least three. The 
first is from England, and is a friendly warning. England 
has warned us by several matters of fact, according to her 
custom, rather than verbiage, that the colonies had entered 
upon a new era of existence, a new phase in their career. 
She has given us this warning in several different shapes — 
when she gave us " Responsible Government " — when she 
adopted Eree Trade — when she repealed the Navigation 
Laws — and when, three or four years ago, she commenced 
that series of official despatches in relation to militia and 
defence which she has ever since poured in on us, in a 
steady stream, always bearing the same solemn burthen — 
" Prepare ! prepare ! prepare ! " These warnings gave us 
notice that the old order of things between the colonies 
and the mother country had ceased, and that a new order 
must take its place. (Hear, hear.) About four years ago, 
the first despatches began to be addressed to this country, 
from the Colonial Office, upon the subject. Erom that day 
to this there has been a steady stream of despatches in this 
direction, either upon particular or general points connected 
with our defence ; and I venture to say, that if bound up 
together, the despatches of the lamented Duke of Newcastle 
alone would make a respectable volume — all notifying this 
Government, by the advices they conveyed, that the re- 
lations — the military apart from the political and com- 
mercial relations — of this Province to the mother country 
had changed; and we were told in the most explicit 
language that could be employed, that we were no longer 
to consider ourselves, in relation to defence, in the same 
position we formerly occupied towards the mother country. 
Well, these warnings have been friendly warnings ; and if 
w r e have failed to do our part in regard to them, we must, 
at all events, say this, that they were addressed to our 
Government so continuously and so strenuously that they 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 271 

freed tlie Imperial power of much responsibility for what- 
ever might follow, because they showed to the colonies 
clearly what, in the event of certain contingencies arising, 
they had to expect. We may grumble or not at the neces- 
sity of preparation England imposes upon us, but, whether 
we like it or not, we have, at all events, been told that we 
have entered upon a new era in our military relations to 
the rest of the Empire. (Hear, hear.) Then, Sir, in the 
second place, there came what I may call the other warn- 
ing from without — the American warning. (Hear, hear.) 
Republican America gave us her notices in times past, 
through her press, and her demagogues, and her statesmen, 
but of late days she has given us much more intelligible 
notices — such as the notice to abrogate the Reciprocity 
Treaty, and to arm the lakes, contrary to the provisions of 
the Convention of 1818. She has given us another notice 
in imposing a vexatious passport system ; another in her 
avowed purpose to construct a ship canal round the falls of 
Niagara, so as " to pass war vessels from Lake Ontario to 
Lake Erie ; " and yet another, the most striking one of all, 
has been given to us, if we will only understand it, by 
the enormous expansion of the American army and navy. 
I will take leave to read to the House a few figures 
which show the amazing, the unprecedented growth (which 
has not, perhaps, a parallel in the annals of the past), 
of the military power of our neighbours, within the past 
three or four years. I have the details here by me, but 
shall only read the results, to show the House the emphatic 
terms of this most serious warning. In January, 1861, 
the regular army of the United States, including of course 
the whole of the States, did not exceed 15,000 men. This 
number was reduced, from desertion and other causes, by 
5,000 men, leaving 10,000 men as the regular army of the 
United States. In December, 1862, that is, from January, 
1861, to January, 1863, this army of L0,000 was increased 
to 800,000 soldiers actually in the service. (Hear, hear.) 
No doubt there are exaggerations in some of these figures 
— the rosters were, doubtless, in some cases filled with 
fictitious names, in order to procure the bounties that were 



272 BKITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

offered; but if we allow two-thirds as correct, we find that 
a people who had an army of 10,000 men in 1861, had in 
two years increased it to an army of 600,000 men. As to 
their munitions and stock of war material at the opening of 
the war — that is to say, at the date of the attack upon Port 
Sumter — we find that they had of siege and heavy guns 
1,952 ; of field artillery, 231 ; of infantry firearms, 473,000; 
of cavalry firearms, 31,000 ; and of ball and shell, 363,000. 
At the end of 1863, the latest period to which I have sta- 
tistics upon the subject, the 1,052 heavy guns had become 
2,116; the 231 field pieces had become 2,965; the 
473,000 infantry arms had become 2,423,000; the 31,000 
cavalry arms had become 369,000; and the 363,000 ball 
and shell had become 2,925,000. Now as to the navy of 
the United States, 1 wish also to show that this wonderful 
development of war power in the United States is the 
second warning we have had, that we cannot go on as we 
have gone. (Hear, hear.) In January, 1861, the ships of 
war belonging to the United States were 83; in December, 
1864, they numbered 671, of which 54 were monitors and 
iron-clads, carrying 4,610 guns, with a tonnage of 510,000 
tons, and manned by a force of 51,000 men. These are 
frightful figures; frightful for the capacity of destruction 
they represent, for the heaps of carnage they represent, for 
the quantity of human blood spilt they represent, for the 
lust of conquest they represent, for the evil passions they 
represent, and for the arrest of the onward progress of civi- 
lisation they represent. But it is not the figures which 
give the worst view of the fact — for England still carries 
more guns afloat even than our well-armed neighbours. 
(Cheers.) It is the change which has taken place in the 
spirit of the people of the Northern States themselves which 
is the worst view of the fact. How far have they travelled 
since the humane Channing preached the unlawfulness of 
war — since the living Sumner delivered his addresses to the 
Peace Society on the same theme ! I remember an accom- 
plished poet, one of the most accomplished the New Eng- 
land States have ever produced, taking very strong grounds 
against the prosecution of the Mexican war, and published 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 273 

the Bigelow Papers, so well known in American literature, 
to show the ferocity and criminality of war. That poet 
made Mr. Bird-o'-Ereedom Sawin sing : 

Ef you take a soaord an droar it, 
An go stick a feller thru, 
Gruv'meut won't answer for it, 
God'll seud the bill to you ! 

(Laughter.) This was slightly audacious and irreverent in 
expression, but it was remarkably popular in New England 
at that time. The writer is now one of the editors of a 
popular Boston periodical, and would be one of the last, I 
have no doubt, to induce a Northern soldier to withdraw 
his sword from the body of any unhappy Southerner whom 
he had, contrary to the poet's former political ethics, 
" stuck thru." (Laughter.) But it is not the revolution 
wrought in the minds of men of great intelligence that is 
most to be deplored — for the powerful will of such men 
may compel their thoughts back again to a philosophy of 
peace ; no, it is the mercenary and military interests created 
under Mr. Lincoln which are represented, the former by an 
estimated governmental outlay of above $100,000,000 this 
year, and the other by the 800,000 men, whose blood is 
thus to be bought and paid for ; by the armies out of uni- 
form who prey upon the army in uniform ; by the army of 
contractors who are to feed and clothe and arm the fighting 
million; by that other army, the army of tax-collectors, 
who cover the land, seeing that no industry escapes un- 
burthened, no possession unentered, no aifection even, un- 
taxed. Tax ! tax ! tax ! is the cry from the rear ! Blood ! 
blood ! blood ! is the cry from the front ! Gold ! gold ! 
gold ! is the chuckling undertone which comes up from the 
mushroom millionaires, well named a shoddy aristocracy. 
Nor do I think the army interest, the contracting interest, 
and the tax-gathering interest, the worst results that have 
grown out of this war. There is another and equally 
serious interest — the revolution in the spirit, mind, and 
principles of the people, that terrible change which has 
made war familiar and even attractive to them. When the 
first battle was fought — when, in the language of the Duke 

x 



274 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

of Wellington, the first " butcher's bill was sent in " — a 
shudder of horror ran through the length and breadth of 
the country ; but by- and-by, as the carnage increased, no 
newspaper was considered worth laying on the breakfast 
table unless it contained the story of the butchery of thou- 
sands of men. " Only a thousand killed ! Pooh, pooh, 
that's nothing ! " exclaimed Mr. Shoddy, as he sipped his 
coffee in his luxurious apartment; and nothing short of the 
news of ten or fifteen thousand maimed or slain in a day 
could satisfy the jaded palate of men craving for excite- 
ment, and such horrible excitement as attends the wholesale 
murder of their fellow-creatures. Have these sights and 
sounds no warning addressed to us ? Are we as those who 
have eyes and see not; ears and hear not; reason, neither 
do they understand ? If we are true to Canada — if we do 
not desire to become part and parcel of this people — we 
cannot overlook this, the greatest revolution of our own 
times. Let us remember this, that when the three cries 
among our next neighbours are shoddy, taxation, blood, it 
is time for us to provide for our own security. I said in 
this House, during the session of the year 1861, that the 
first gun fired at Tort Sumter had " a message for us ; " I 
was unheeded then; I repeat now that every one of the 
2,700 great guns in the field, and every one of the 4,600 
guns afloat, whenever it opens its mouth, repeats the solemn 
warning of England — Prepare! prepare! prepare! (Cheers.) 
But I may be told by some moralising friend, Oh ! but when 
they get out of this, they will have had enough of it, and 
they will be very glad to rest on their laurels. They ! Who ? 
The Shoddy aristocracy have enough of it ? The disbanded 
army of tax-gatherers have enough of it ? The manufac- 
turers of false intelligence have enough of it? Who is it 
probable will have had enough of it ? The fighting men 
themselves ? I dare say they would all like to have a fur- 
lough, but all experience teaches us, it is not of war soldiers 
tire, but of peace ; it is not of the sea sailors tire, but of the 
land. Jack likes to land, and have a frolic and spend his 
money, so does Jack's brother the fighting landsman — but 
the one is soon as much out of his element as the other, 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 275 

when parted from his comrades, when denied the gipsy joys 
of the camp, when he no longer feels his sword, he looks up 
to it where it hangs, and sighs to take it down and be " at 
work " again. He will even quit his native country, if she 
continues perversely peaceful, and go into foreign service, 
rather than remain what he calls "idle/'' (Hear.) This 
is experience, which I beg respectfully to cite in opposition 
to the seductive, disarming fallacy of my moralising friend. 
(Hear, hear.) The Attorney-General East told us in his 
speech the other night, that one of the articles of the ori- 
ginal programme of the American Revolutionists was the 
acquisition of Canada to the United States. They pretend 
to underrate the importance of this country, now that they 
are fully occupied elsewhere ; but I remember well that the 
late Mr. Webster, who was not a demagogue, at the open- 
ing of the Worcester and Albany Railway, some years since, 
expressed the hope that the railways of the New England 
States would all point towards Canada, because their influ- 
ence and the demands of commerce would in time bring 
Canada into the Union, and increase the Northern pre- 
ponderance in that Union. (Hear, hear.) I think, Sir, I 
am justified in regarding the American conflict as one of 
the warnings we have received; and the third warning, 
that things cannot go on in this country as they are, is a 
warning voice from within — a warning voice from our own 
experience in the government of these Provinces. (Hear, 
hear.) On these internal constitutional difficulties existing 
among ourselves, which were so fully exposed last evening 
by my hon. friend the President of the Council, I need 
say little ; they are admitted to have been real, not imagi- 
nary, on all hands. An illustration was used in another 
place in explaining this part of the subject by the venerable 
and gallant knight, our Premier, than which nothing could 
be more clear. He observed that when we had had five 
administrations within four years, it was full time to look 
out for some permanent remedy for such a state of things. 
True — most true — Constitutional Government among us 
had touched its lowest point when it existed only by the 
successful search of a messenger or a page after a member 

T 2 



276 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

willingly or unwillingly absent from his seat. Any one 
might in those days have been the saviour of his country. 
All he had to do was, when one of the five successive 
governments which arose in four years was in danger, to 
rise in his place, say " Yea \" and presto the country was 
saved. (Laughter.) This House was fast losing, under 
such a state of things, its hold on the country; the 
administrative departments were becoming disorganised 
under such frequent changes of chiefs and policies ; we 
were nearly as bad as the army of the Potomac before its 
" permanent remedy " was found in General Grant. Well, 
we have had our three warnings; one warning from within 
and two from without. I daresay, Sir, we all remember 
the old school-book story of the "Three Warnings;" how 
Death promised not to come after a certain individual he 
had unintentionally intruded on on his wedding-day. I 
say unintentionally, for Death is a gentleman, and seldom 
walks in unannounced (laughter) ; but he promised not 
to call upon this particular person without giving him 
three distinct warnings. Well, the honourable gentleman 
in question — I daresay he was honourable, and a member 
of some house — he, like all the rest of us, expected to out- 
live everybody. But in process of years he fell lame, then 
afterwards he became deaf, and at last he grew blind : then 
Death's hour had come, and in spite of some admirable 
pleading on behalf of the defendant in the case, he had his 
u three warnings " like a Parisian editor, his case was 
closed, his form was locked up, and his impression was 
struck off the face of the earth, and Death claimed and 
had his own. (Laughter.) Now, Sir, we have had three 
warnings, and if we do not take heed of them and prepare 
for the possible future condition into which we may be 
plunged, wo to us if we are found unprepared when the 
hour of destiny strikes ! (Cheers.) We have submitted 
a plan preparing us for such a contingency, and the Attor- 
neys-General East and West have analysed its constitutional 
character, while the Minister of Finance and the President 
of the Council have treated it in its financial aspects. 
There are some objections to be taken to the plan, I 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 277 

understand, in detail; but I do not believe that any mem- 
ber will get up in this House and declare that he is an 
anti- unionist, and that he is opposed to union, and that he 
considers union unnecessary and inexpedient. (Hear, hear.) 
I do not know that there is one man out of the one hundred 
and thirty who compose this House, in view of the circum- 
stances iu which we are placed, who will declare that he 
is opposed to every sort of union with the Lower Provinces. 
One may say that he does not like this or the other clause 
— that he does not like this or that feature of the proposed 
scheme ; but still all admit that union of some kind would 
increase our protection and be a source of strength. Some 
honourable gentlemen, while admitting that we have entered, 
within the present decade, on a period of political transi- 
tion, have contended that we might have bridged the abyss 
with that Prussian pontoon called a Zollverein. But if 
any one for a moment will remember that the trade of the 
whole froTit of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia gravitates 
at present along-shore to Portland and Boston, while the 
trade of Upper Canada, west of Kingston, has long gravi- 
tated across the lakes to New York, he will see, I think, 
that a mere Zollverein treaty without a strong political end 
to serve, and some political power at its back, would be, in 
our new circumstances, merely waste paper. (Hear, hear.) 
The charge that we have not gone far enough — that we 
have not struck out boldly for a consolidated union, instead 
of a union with reserved local jurisdictions — is another 
charge which deserves some notice. To this I answer that 
if we had had, as was proposed, an Intercolonial Railway 
twenty years ago, we might by this time have been perhaps, 
and only perhaps, in a condition to unite into one con- 
solidated government ; but certain politicians and capitalists 
having defeated that project twenty years ago, special in- 
terests took the place great general interest might by this 
time have occupied; vested rights and local ambitions 
arose and were recognised ; and all these had to be 
admitted as existing in a pretty advanced stage of develop- 
ment when the late conferences were called together. 
(Hear, hear.) The lesson to be learned from this squan- 



278 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

dering of quarter centuries by British Americans is this, 
that if we lose the present propitious opportunity, we may 
find it as hard a few years hence to get an audience, even 
for any kind of union (except democratic union), as we 
should have found it to get a hearing last year for a legis- 
lative union, from the long period of estrangement and 
non-intercourse which had existed between these Provinces, 
and the special interests which had grown up in the mean- 
time in each of them. (Cheers.) Another motive to union, 
or rather a phase of the last motive spoken of, is this, that 
the policy of our neighbours to the south of us has always 
been aggressive. There has always been a desire amongst 
them for the acquisition of new territory, and the inexorable 
law of democratic existence seems to be its absorption. 
They coveted Florida,, and seized it ; they coveted Louisiana, 
and purchased it; they coveted Texas, and stole it; and 
then they picked a quarrel with Mexico, which ended by 
their getting California. (Hear, hear.) They sometimes 
pretend to despise these colonies as prizes beneath their 
ambition ; but had we not had the strong arm of England 
over us we should not now have had a separate existence. 
(Cheers.) The acquisition of Canada was the first ambition 
of the American Confederacy, and never ceased to be so, 
when her troops were a handful and her navy scarce a 
squadron. Is it likely to be stopped now, when she counts 
her guns afloat by thousands and her troops by hundreds 
of thousands ? On this motive a very powerful expression 
of opinion has lately appeared in a published letter of the 
Archbishop of Halifax, Dr. Connolly. Who is the Arch- 
bishop of Halifax ? In either of the coast colonies, where 
he has laboured in his high vocation for nearly a third of a 
century, it would be absurd to ask the question; but in 
Canada he may not be equally well known. Some of my 
honourable friends in this and the other House, who were 
his guests last year, must have felt the impress of his 
character as well as the warmth of his hospitality. (Hear, 
hear.) Well, he is known as one of the first men in 
sagacity as he is in position, in any of these colonies ; that 
he was for many years the intimate associate of his late 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 279 

distinguished confrere, Archbishop Hughes of New York ; 
that he knows the United States as thoroughly as he does 
the Provinces, and these are his views on this particular 
point ; the extract is somewhat long, but so excellently 
put that I am sure the House will be obliged to me for 
the whole of it : — 

" Instead of cursing, like the boy in the upturned boat, 
and holding on until we are fairly on the brink of the 
cataract, we must at once begin to pray and strike out for 
the shore by all means, before we get too far down on the 
current. We must at this most critical moment invoke 
the Arbiter of nations for wisdom, and abandoning in time 
our perilous position, we must strike out boldly, and at 
some risk, for some rock on the nearest shore — some 
resting-place of greater security. A cavalry raid or a visit 
from our Fenian friends on horseback, through the plains 
of Canada and the fertile valleys of New Brunswick and 
Nova Scotia, may cost more in a single week than Con- 
federation for the next fifty years ; and if we are to believe 
you, where is the security even at the present moment 
against such a disaster ? Without the whole power of the 
mother country by land and sea, and the concentration in 
a single hand of all the strength of British America, our 
condition is seen at a glance. Whenever the present diffi- 
culties will terminate — and who can tell the moment ? — 
we will be at the mercy of our neighbours ; and victorious 
or otherwise, they will be eminently a military people, and 
with all their apparent indifference about annexing this 
country, and all the friendly feelings that may be talked, 
they will have the power to strike when they please, and 
this is precisely the kernel and the only touch-point of the 
whole question. No nation ever had the power of con- 
quest that did not use it, or abuse it, at the very first 
favourable opportunity. All that is said of the magnani- 
mity and forbearance of mighty nations can be explained 
on the principle of sheer inexpediency, as the world knows. 
The whole face of Europe has been changed, and the 
dynasties of many hundred years have been swept away 
within our own time, on the principle of might alone — the 



280 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

oldest, the strongest, and as some would have it, the most 
sacred of all titles. The thirteen original States of America, 
with all their professions of self-denial, have been all the 
time, by money, power, and by war, and by negotiation, 
extending their frontier until they more than quadrupled 
their territory within sixty years ; and believe it who may, 
are they now of their own accord to come to a full stop ? 
No; as long as they have the power, they must go on 
onward : for it is the very nature of power to grip what- 
ever is within its reach. It is not their hostile feelings, 
therefore, but it is their power, and only their power, I 
dread ; and I now state it as my solemn conviction, that it 
becomes the duty of every British subject in these Provinces 
to control that power, not by the insane policy of attacking 
or weakening them, but by strengthening ourselves — rising, 
with the whole power of Britain at our back, to their level, 
and so be prepared for any emergency. There is no sensible 
or unprejudiced man in the community who does not see 
that vigorous and timely preparation is the only possible 
means of saving us from the horrors of a war such as the 
world has never seen. To be fully prepared is the only 
practical argument that can have weight with a powerful 
enemy, and make him pause beforehand and count the 
cost. And as the sort of preparation I speak of is utterly 
hopeless without the union of the Provinces, so at a moment 
when public opinion is being formed on this vital point, as 
one deeply concerned, I feel it a duty to declare myself 
unequivocally in favour of Confederation as cheaply and as 
honourably as possible — but Confederation at all hazards 
and at all reasonable sacrifices. 

" After the most mature consideration, and all the 
arguments I have heard on both sides for the last month, 
these are my inmost convictions on the necessity and 
merits of a measure which alone, under Providence, can 
secure to us social order and peace, and rational liberty, 
and all the blessings we now enjoy under the mildest 
Government and the hallowed institutions of the freest and 
happiest country in the world." (Cheers.) 

These are the words of a statesman — of a mitred states- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 281 

man — one of that order of mighty men, powerful in their 
generation, whose statesmanly gifts have been cast in the 
strong mould of theological discipline — such men as were 
Ximenes and Wolsey, Laud and Knox. No one more 
deprecates than I do the interference of clergymen in mere 
party politics, and I think such is the sentiment also of 
His Grace of Halifax ; but when it is an issue of peace or 
war, of deliverance or conquest, who has a better, who so 
good a right to speak as the ministers of the Gospel of 
peace, and justice, and true freedom ? Observe once more 
these two closing sentences, " I feel it a duty," says the 
illustrious Archbishop, " to declare myself unequivocally in 
favour of Confederation as cheaply and as honourably 
obtained as possible, but Confederation at all hazards and 
at all reasonable sacrifices. After the most mature con- 
sideration, and all the arguments I have heard on both 
sides for the last month, these are my inmost convictions 
on the necessity and merits of a measure which alone, 
under Providence, can secure to us social order and peace, 
and rational liberty, and all the blessings we now enjoy 
under the mildest Government and the hallowed institu- 
tions of the freest and happiest country in the world." 
(Hear, hear.) The next motive for union to which I shall 
refer is, that it will strengthen rather than weaken the 
connection with the Empire, so essential to these rising 
Provinces. Those who may be called, if there are any 
such, the anti-unionists, allege, that this scheme now 
submitted will bring separation in its train. How, pray ? 
By making these countries more important, will you make 
them less desirable as connections to England? By 
making their trade more valuable, will you make her more 
anxious to get rid of it ? By reducing their Eederal tariff, 
will you lessen their interest for England? By making 
them stronger for each other's aid, will you make her less 
willing to discharge a lighter than a greater responsibility? 
But if the thing did not answer itself, England has answered 
that she " cordially approves " of our plan of union, — and 
she has always been accounted a pretty good judge of her 
own Imperial interests. (Hear, hear.) She does not con- 



282 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

sider our union inimical to those interests. Instead of 
looking upon it with a dark and discouraging frown, she 
cheers us on by her most cordial approval and bids us a 
hearty " God speed " in the new path we have chosen to 
enter. (Hear, hear.) But I put it on provincial grounds 
as well. We are not able to go alone, and if we attempted 
it we would almost certainly go to our own destruction — 
so that as we cannot go alone, and as we do not desire 
union with the United States, it is the duty of every man 
to do all in his power to strengthen the connection with 
Great Britain ? And how shall we do it ? Is it by com- 
pelling the Imperial Government to negotiate at Charlotte- 
town, for every man and musket required for our defence, 
to negotiate again at Halifax, and again at Frederickton, 
and again at St. John's, and again at Quebec ? Is it by 
having these five separate governments that we are to 
render the connection desirable ? or is it by putting the 
power of these colonies into the hands of one General 
Government and making the negotiations between two 
parties only, thereby simplifying the whole transaction and 
expediting whatever is to be done between the two 
countries? (Hear, hear.) I will content myself, Mr. 
Speaker, with those principal motives to union ; first, that 
we are in the rapids, and must go on; next, that our 
neighbours will not, on their side, let us rest supinely, 
even if we could do so from other causes; and tbirdly, 
that by making the united colonies more valuable as an 
ally to Great Britain, we shall strengthen rather than 
weaken the Imperial connection. (Cheers.) Let me now, 
Sir, call your attention to the difficulties, past and present, 
which this great project had to encounter, before it reached 
the fortunate stage in which we now rind it ; by considering 
these difficulties we shall be the better enabled to see the 
folly of throwing the subject back into the cauldron, merely 
on the ground of detail. When a Union was advocated 
by individuals, however eminent, of course it had but 
scanty chance of success. (Hear, hear.) That was the 
first stage; when, as in 1822 and 1839, it found favour 
with Downing Street, it excited the suspicions of the 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 283 

colonists; when it was identified with the Quebec and 
Halifax railway project, it shared the same fate, — it was 
sacrificed to the jealousies and dissensions which destroyed 
that particular undertaking. When, as in the case of my 
hon. friend (Mr. Gait's) motion, and my own motion in 1860, 
the subject was mooted in this House by a private member, 
the Ministry of the day could not allow so grave a measure 
to succeed in other hands than their own ; when, as was 
the case in 1858, the Ministry committed themselves to it, 
the Opposition complained that Parliament had not been 
consulted. When Canada proposed to move, in 1859, 
Newfoundland alone responded ; when Nova Scotia moved, 
in 1860, New Brunswick alone agreed to go with her; at 
all events, Canada did not then concur. (Hear, hear.) 
Of late years the language of the Colonial Office, of Mr. 
Labouchere, of Sir Bulwer Lytton, and of the lamented 
Duke of Newcastle, was substantially: "Agree among 
yourselves, gentlemen, and we will not stand in the way.''' 
Ah! there was the rub — "Agree among yourselves!" 
Easier said than done, with five colonies so long estranged, 
and whose former negotiations had generally ended in bitter 
controversies. Up to the last year there was no conjunc- 
tion of circumstances favourable to bringing about this 
union, and probably if we suffer this opportunity to be 
wasted we shall never see again such another conjunction 
as will enable us to agree, even so far, among ourselves. 
By a most fortunate concurrence of circumstances — by 
what I presume to call, speaking of events of this mag- 
nitude, a Providential concurrence of circumstances — the 
Government of Canada w^as so modified last spring as to 
enable it to deal fearlessly with this subject, at the very 
moment when the coast colonies, despairing of a Canadian 
union, were arranging a conference of their own for a union 
of their own. Our Government embraced among its 
members from the western section the leaders of the former 
Ministry and former Opposition from that section. At the 
time it was formed it announced to this House that it was 
its intention as part of its policy to seek a conference with 
the Lower Colonies, and endeavour to bring about a general 



284 BRITISH-AMEKICAN UNION. 

union. This House formally gave the Government its 
confidence after the announcement of that policy, and 
although I have no desire to strain terms, it does appear 
to me that this House did thereby fully commit itself to 
the principle of a union of the colonies, if practicable. 
That is my view, Sir, of the relations of this House to the 
Government after it gave it expressly its confidence. 
Other members of the House take another view of that 
matter, they do not think themselves committed even to 
the principle, and they certainly are not to the details of 
the scheme. (Hear.) After the coalition was formed an 
incident occurred, which, though not of national import- 
ance, it would be most ungrateful of me to forget. An 
Intercolonial Excursion was proposed and w r as rendered 
practicable through the public spirit of two gentlemen 
representing our great railway, of which so many hard 
things have been said that I feel it my duty to say this 
good thing — 1 refer to the Honourable Mr. Perrier and 
Mr. Brydges. (Cheers.) Porty members of this House, 
twenty-five members of the other House, and forty gentle- 
men of the press and other professions, from Canada, joined 
in that excursion. So many Canadians had never seen so 
much of the Lower Provinces before, and the people of the 
Lower Provinces had never seen so many Canadians. Our 
reception was beyond all description kind and cordial. 
The general sentiment of union was everywhere cheered to 
the echo, though I am sorry to find that some of those who 
cheered then, when it was but a general sentiment, seem 
to act very differently now that it has become a ripened 
project, and I fear that they do not intend to act up to the 
words they then uttered. They may, perhaps, intend to do 
so, but they have a very odd way of going about it. 
(Laughter.) Well, Sir, this was in August ; the Charlotte- 
town Conference was called in September, the Quebec 
Conference in October, and the tour of the maritime 
delegates through Canada took place in November. 
Pour months of the eight which have elapsed since we 
promised this House to deal with it have been almost 
wholly given up to this great enterprise. Let me bear my 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 285 

tribute, Mr. Speaker, now that I refer to the conference, 
to the gentlemen from the Lower Provinces, who sat so 
many days in council with us, under this roof. (Cheers.) 
A very worthy citizen of Montreal, when I went up a day 
or two in advance of the Montreal banquet, asked me, 
with a curious sort of emphasis — " What sort of people are 
they ? " — meaning the maritime delegates. I answered him 
then, as I repeat now, that they were, as a body, as able and 
accomplished a body, I thought, as any new country could 
produce, — and that some among them would compare not 
unfavourably in ability and information with some of the 
leading commoners of England. As our Government in- 
cluded a representation both of the former Opposition and 
the former Ministry, so their delegations were composed in 
about equal parts of the Opposition and Ministerial parties 
of their several provinces. A more hard-working set of 
men; men more tenacious of their own rights, yet more 
considerate for those of others ; men of readier resource in 
debate ; men of gentler manners ; men more willing to 
bear and forbear, 1 hardly can hope to see together at one 
council table again. (Cheers.) But why need I dwell 
on this point? They were seen and heard in all our 
principal cities, and I am sure every Canadian who met 
them here was proud of them as fellow-subjects, and would 
be happy to feel that he could soon call them fellow- 
countrymen in fact as well as in name. (Cheers.) Sir, by 
this combination of great abilities — by this coalition of 
leaders who never before acted together — through this 
extraordinary armistice in party warfare, obtained in every 
colony at the same moment — after all this labour and all 
this self-sacrifice — after all former impediments had been 
most fortunately overcome — 'the treaty w r as concluded and 
signed by us all — and there it lies for your ratification. 
The propositions contained in it have been objected to, and 
we were reminded the other evening by the honourable 
member for Chateauguay, that we are not a treaty- 
making power. Well, in reference to that objection, I 
believe the Imperial Government has in certain cases, such 
as the Pteciprocity Treaty, conceded to these Provinces the 



286 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

right of coaction ; and in tins case there is the Imperial 
despatch of 1862 to Lord Mulgrave, Governor of Nova 
Scotia, distinctly authorising the public men of the colonies 
to confer with each other on the subject of union, and 
inviting them to submit the result of their conferences to 
the Imperial Government. (Hear, hear.) We assembled 
under the authority and acted under the sanction of that 
despatch. Everything we did was done in form and with 
propriety, and the result of our proceedings is the docu- 
ment that has been submitted to the Imperial Govern- 
ment as well as to this House, and which we speak of here 
as a treaty. And that there may be no doubt about our 
position L in regard to that document we say, Question it 
you may, reject it you may, or accept it you may, but alter 
it you may not. (Hear, hear.) It is beyond your power, 
or our power, to alter it. There is not a sentence — not 
even a word — you can alter without desiring to throw out 
the document. Alter it, and we know at once what you 
mean — you thereby declare yourselves against the only 
possible union. (Hear, hear.) On this point, I repeat 
after all my hon. friends who have already spoken, for one 
party to alter a treaty, is, of course, to destroy it. Let us 
be frank with each other ; you do not like our work, nor 
do you like us who stand by it, clause by clause, line by 
line, and letter by letter. Oh ! but this clause ought to 
run thus, and this other clause thus. Does any hon. member 
seriously think that any treaty in the world between five 
separate provinces ever gave full and entire satisfaction on 
every point, to every party? Does any hon. member seriously 
expect to have a constitutional act framed to his order, or 
my order, or any man's order ? No, Sir, I am sure no legis- 
lator, at least since Anacharsis Clootz was Attorney-General 
of ttie Human Race, ever expected such ideal perfection. 
(Laughter.) It may be said by some hon. gentlemen that 
they admit the principle of this measure to be good, but 
that it should be dealt with as an ordinary parliamentary 
subject in the usual parliamentary manner. Mr. Speaker, 
this is not an ordinary parliamentary measure. We do 
not legislate upon it, ice do not anact it, — that is for a 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 287 

higher authority. Suppose the Address adopted by this 
.House to-morrow, — is the act of this House final and con- 
clusive ? No. It is for the Imperial Parliament to act 
upon it. (Hear, hear.) That body that can cause the 
several propositions to be moulded into a measure which 
will have the form of law, and these resolutions may 
probably be the ipsissima verba of the measure they will 
give us and the other Provinces. But some hon. gentle- 
men opposite say, that if there be defects in this treaty 
they ought to be remedied now, and that the G overnment 
ought to be glad to have them pointed out. Yes, surely, 
if this were simply the act of the Parliament of Canada ; 
but it is not to be our act alone. It is an Address to the 
Throne, in the terms to which four other colonies are 
parties, and even if we were to make alterations in it, we 
cannot bind them to accept them. If we were weak and 
wicked enough -to alter a solemn agreement with the other 
Provinces, the moment their representatives had turned 
their backs and gone home, what purpose would it serve 
except that of defeating the whole measure, and throwing it 
as well as the country back again into chaos? (Hear, 
hear.) I admit, Sir, as we have been told, that we ought 
to aim at perfection; but who has ever attained it, except 
perhaps the hon. member for Broome? (Laughter.) We, 
however, did strive and aim at the mark, and we think we 
made a tolerably good shot. The hon. member for Chau- 
teauguay will not be satisfied — insatiate archer ! — unless 
we hit the bull's eye. (Laughter.) My hon. friend is 
well read in political literature — will he mention me one 
authority, from the first to the last, who ever held that 
human government was or could be anything more than 
what a modern sage called " an approximation to the 
right/' and an ancient called "the possible best ?" Well, 
we believe we have here given to our countrymen of all the 
Provinces the possible best — that we have given them an 
approximation to the right — their representatives and ours 
have laboured at it, letter and spirit, form and substance, 
until they found this basis of agreement, which we are all 
confident will not now^ nor for many a day to come, be 



288 BRITISH- AMERICAN UNION. 

easily swept away. Before I pass to another point, Sir, 
permit me to pay my tribute of unfeigned respect to one 
of our Canadian colleagues in this work, who is no longer 
with us ; I mean the present Yice-Chancellor of Upper 
Canada (Hon. Mr. Mowat), who took a constant and hon- 
ourable share in the preparation of this project. (Cheers.) 
Now, Sir, I wish to say a few words in reference to 
what I call the social relations which I think ought to exist 
and are likely to spring up between the people of the Lower 
Provinces and ourselves if there is a closer communication 
established between us, and also in reference to the social 
fitness to each of the parties to this proposed union. And 
first, I will make a remark to some of the Prench Canadian 
gentlemen who are said to be opposed to our project, on 
Prench Canadian grounds only. I will remind them, I 
hope not improperly, that every one of the colonies we now 
propose to re-unite under one rule — in which they shall 
have a potential voice — were once before united as New 
Prance. (Cheers.) Newfoundland, the uttermost, was 
theirs, and one large section of its coast is still known as 
"the Prench shore ;" Cape Breton was theirs till the 
final fall of Louisburgh ; Prince Edward Island was their 
Island of St. Jean ; Charlottetown was their Port Joli ; 
and Prederickton, the present capital of New Brunswick, 
their St. Anne's ; in the heart of Nova Scotia was that 
fair Arcadian land, where the roll of Longfellow's noble 
hexameters may be heard in every wave that breaks upon 
the base of Cape Blomedon. (Cheers.) In the northern 
counties of New Brunswick, from the Miramachi to the 
Matapediac, they had their forts and farms, their churches 
and their festivals, before the English speech had ever once 
been heard between those rivers. Nor is that tenacious 
Norman and Breton race extinct in their old haunts and 
homes. I have heard one of the members for Cape Breton 
speak in high terms of that portion of his constituency, and 
I believe I am correct in saying that Mr. Le Yisconte, the 
late Pinance Minister of Nova Scotia, was, in the literal 
sense of the term, an Arcadian. Mr. Cozzans, of New- 
York, who wrote a very readable little book the other day 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 289 

about Nova Scotia, describes the French residents near the 
basin of Minas, and he says, especially of the women, 
" they might have stepped out of Normandy a hundred 
years ago ! " In New Brunswick there is more than one 
county, especially in the North, where business, and law, 
and politics, require a knowledge of both French and 
English. A worthy friend of ours, Hon. Mr. Mitchell of 
Chatham, who was present at the earlier meetings of the 
Conference, owed his first election for one of these counties, 
because he was Pierre Michel, and could speak to his 
French constituents in their own language. I will, with 
leave of the House, read on this interesting subject a 
passage from a very capital sketch of the French district of 
New Brunswick in 1863, by Lieutenant Governor Gordon 
[it is in Galston's "Vacation Tourist for 1864/' and is 
exceedingly interesting throughout] ; Mr. Gordon says : — 
" The French population, which forms so large a pro- 
portion among the inhabitants of the counties of West- 
moreland, Kent, and Gloucester, appears to me as con- 
tented as the habitants of Yictoria, but hardly equally as 
well off. There was an air of comfort and Uen-etre about 
the large timber two-storied houses, painted a dark Indian 
red, standing among the trees, the numerous good horses, 
the well-tilled fields and sleek cattle, which is wanting on 
the sea coast. We stopped after a pleasant drive, affording 
us good views of the beautiful peak of Green River 
Mountain, at the house of a Monsieur Violet, at the mouth 
of Grand Eiver, which was to be our starting point. The 
whole aspect of the farm was that of the metairie in 
Normandy — the outer doors of the house gaudily painted 
— the panels of a different colour from the frame — the large, 
open, uncarpeted room, with its bare shining floor — the 
lasses at the spinning-wheel — the French costume and 
appearance of Madame Violet and her sons and daughters, 
all carried me back to the other side of the Atlantic. After 
a short conversation with the Violets, we walked down to 
the bridge, where two log- canoes, manned by Frenchmen 
— three Cyrs and a Thibaudeau — were waiting for us, and 
pushed off from the shore/' 



290 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

It will be observed Governor Gordon speaks of four 
counties in the north of New Brunswick which still bear 
a marked French character. Well, gentlemen of French 
origin, we propose to restore these long-lost compatriots to 
your protection : in the Federal Union, which will recognise 
equally both languages, they will naturally look to you ; 
their petitions will come to you, and their representatives 
will naturally be found allied with you. Suppose those 
four New Brunswick counties are influenced by the French 
vote, and say two in Nova Scotia, you will, should you need 
them, have them as sure allies to your own compact body, 
to aid your legitimate influence in the Federal Councils. 
(Cheers.) I proceed with my analysis of the maritime 
population, in order to establish the congruity and con- 
geniality of our proposed union. In point of time, the 
next oldest element in that population is the Irish settle- 
ment of Ferryland, in Newfoundland, undertaken by Lord 
Baltimore and Lord Falkland (Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 
at the time), immediately after the restoration of King 
Charles II., soon after 1660. Newfoundland still remains 
strongly Irish, as is natural, since it is the next parish to 
Ireland — (laughter) — and I think we saw a very excellent 
specimen of its Irish natives at our Conference in Ambrose 
Shea. (Cries of "hear, hear.") To me, I confess, it is 
particularly grateful to reflect that the only Irish colony, as 
it may be called, of our group, is to be included in the 
new arrangements. (Hear.) Another main element in 
the Lower Province population is the Highland Scotch. 
Large tracts of Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton 
were granted after the Peace of Paris, to officers and men 
of Frazer's Highlanders and other Scottish regiments, which 
had distinguished themselves during the Seven Years' war. 
If my hon. friend from Glengarry (Mr. D. A. Macdonald) 
had been with us last September at Charlottetown, he 
would have met clansmen, whom he would have been 
proud to know, and who could have conversed with him in 
his own cherished Gaelic. 

Mr. D, A. Macdonald. — They r.re all over the world. 
(Laughter.) 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 291 

Hon. Me. McGee. — So much the better for the world. 
(Cheers.) And I will tell him what I think is to their 
honour, that the Highlanders in all the Lower Provinces 
preserve faithfully the religion, as well as the language 
and traditions, of their fathers. The Catholic Bishop of 
Charlottetown is a Mclntyre; his Right Rev. brother of 
Arichat (Cape Breton) is a McKinnon; and in the list 
of the clergy, I find a constant succession of such names as 
McDonald, McGillis, McGillvary, McLeod, McKenzie, and 
Cameron — all " Anglo-Saxons " of course, and mixed up 
with them Eourniers, Gauvreaus, Paquets, and Martells, 
whose origin is easy to discover. (Cheers.) Another of 
the original elements of that population remains to be 
noticed — the U. E. Loyalists, who founded New Bruns- 
wick (as they founded Upper Canada), for whom New 
Brunswick was made a separate Province in 1784, as 
Upper Canada was for their relatives in 1791. Their 
descendants still flourish in the land, holding many 
positions of honour, and as a representative of the class, 
I shall only mention Judge Wilmot, who the other day 
declared in charging one of his grand juries, that if it were 
necessary to carry Confederation in New Brunswick, so 
impressed was he with the necessity of the measure to the 
very existence of British laws and British institutions on 
this continent, he was prepared to quit the bench and 
return to politics. (Cheers.) There are other elements 
also not to be overlooked. The thrifty Germans of Lunen- 
berg, whose homes are the neatest upon the land, as their 
fleet is the tightest on the sea; and other smaller sub- 
divisions; but I shall not prolong this analysis. I may 
observe, however, that this population is almost universally 
a native population of three or four or more generations. 
In New Brunswick, at the most there is about twelve per 
cent, of an immigrant people ; in Nova Scotia, about eight ; 
in the two Islands, even less. In the eye of the law, we 
admit no disparity between natives and immigrants in this 
country; but it is to be considered that where men are 
born in the presence of the graves of their fathers, for even 
a few generations, the influence of the fact is great in 

v 2 



292 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

enhancing their attachment to that soil. I admit, for my 
part, as an immigrant, of no divided allegiance to Canada 
and her interests; but it would be untrue and paltry to 
deny a divided affection between the old country and the 
new. Kept within just bounds, such an affection is reason- 
able, is right and creditable to those who cherish it. (Hear, 
hear.) Why I refer to this broad fact which distinguishes 
the populations of all the four seaward Provinces as much 
as it does Lower Canada herself, is, to show the fixity and 
stability of that population ; to show that they are by birth 
British- Americans ; that they can nearly all, of every origin, 
use that proud phrase when they look daily from their 
doors, " this is my own, my native land." (Cheers.) Let 
but that population and ours come together for a generation 
or two — such are the elements that compose, such the con- 
ditions that surround it — and their mutual descendants will 
hear with wonder, when the history of these present trans- 
actions is written, that this plan of union could ever have 
been seriously opposed by statesmen in Canada or else- 
where. (Cheers.) I am told, however, by one or two 
members of this House, and by exclusive-minded Cana- 
dians out of it, that they cannot get up any patriotic feeling 
about this union with New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, and 
that they cannot look with any interest at those colonies, 
with which we have had hitherto so little association. 
"What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba?" Well, I 
answer to that, know them, and my word for it, you will 
like them. I have made several journeys there, and I have 
seen much of the people, and the more I have seen of them, 
the more I respected and esteemed them. (Hear, hear.) I 
say, then, to these gentlemen, that if you desire any pa- 
triotism on the subject ; if you want to stir up a common 
sentiment of affection between these people and ourselves, 
bring us all into closer relation together, and having the 
elements of a vigorous nationality within us, each will find 
something to like and respect in the other; mutual con- 
fidence and respect will follow, and the feeling of being 
engaged in a common cause for the good of a common 
nationality will grow up of itself without being forced 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PAELIAMENT. 293 

by any man's advocacy. (Hear, hear.) The thing who 
shuts up his heart against his kindred, his neighbours, and 
his fellow-subjects, may be a very pretty fellow at a parish 
vestry, but do you call such a forked-radish as that, a 
man ? (Laughter.) Don't so abuse the noblest word in 
the language. (Hear, hear.) Sir, there is one other 
argument for this union, or rather an illustration of its 
mutually advantageous character, which I draw from the 
physical geography and physical resources of the whole 
territory which it is proposed to unite ; but before I draw 
the attention of the House to it, I may perhaps refer to a 
charge that probably will be made against me, that I am 
making what may appear to be a non-political speech. If 
it be non-political in the sense of non-partisan, then I plead 
guilty to the charge; but I think that on some of the 
points to which I have alluded the country is desirous of 
being informed, and as many hon. gentlemen have not had 
time to make a tour of the country to the east of us, those 
who have had the opportunity of doing so cannot, I think, 
better subserve the interest of the community than by giving 
what appears to them a fair, just, and truthful sketch of 
those Provinces and their people, and thus informing those 
in Canada who have not had the opportunity of making 
observations for themselves on the spot. (Hear, hear.) It 
was remarked by the late Sir John Beverley Eobinson, 
in his letter to Lord John Kussell in 1839, that if the 
British Government had attempted to maintain the ancient 
boundaries of New France, in the treaty which acknow- 
ledged the United States, it would have been an unfortu- 
nate attempt, and impossible after all. Those boundaries 
extended to the Ohio on the south, and included much of 
what is now called by our neighbours " the North- West." 
There is great force, I think, in this observation. But in 
relation to what I may call the ground-plan on which we 
propose to erect our constitutional edifice, its natural one- 
ness is admirable to contemplate. There is not one port or 
harbour of all the Provinces now proposing to confederate, 
which cannot be reached from any other by all vessels, if 
not of too great draught, without ever once leaving our 



294 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

own waters. Prom the head of Lake Superior the same 
craft may coast uninterruptedly, always within sight of our 
own shores, nearly the distance of a voyage to England — 
to St. John's, Newfoundland. (Cheers.) We sometimes 
complain of our inland navigation, that we have it free but 
half the year round, but what it lacks at one season it 
amply compensates by its vast capacity. (Cheers.) Last 
summer, when we visited Halifax in the " Queen Victoria/' 
which the good people of that blockade-running stronghold 
mistook for a Confederate cruiser, we were the better part 
of a week steaming away, always in British American 
waters, within sight of the bold and beautiful coasts which 
it was our privilege to call our own. (Cheers.) While we 
were thus following our river system to the open sea, I 
could not help often recurring to the vast extent of the 
whole. If any hon. gentleman who has never made, or 
who cannot find time to make, a journey through his own 
country, will only go to the library, he will find an excellent 
substitute for such a voyage in Keith Johnston's " Physical 
Atlas," a book that when one opens its leaves his brain 
opens with the book. (Laughter.) He will find that our 
matchless St. Lawrence drains an area of 298,000 square 
miles, of which only 94,000 are occupied by the five great 
lakes taken together. Of the commerce already afloat 
npon those waters, and the commerce of which they are 
capable of being the vehicle, it is hardly necessary, after 
what has been already said, for me to speak. I shall not 
attempt to tread in the path of my two friends who sit 
next me (Hon. Messrs. Gait and Brown) by exhibiting in 
any detail the prospects of mutual commercial advantages 
opened up by this union ; but I have prepared a statement 
of my own on this subject, giving certain general results, — 
which I do not present as complete, but only as proxi- 
mately correct — and which I now beg to read to the 
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and Western limit of Canada has never been absolutely laid down, 
t All the calculations respecting population made upon the census of 1861. 



296 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

But there is, in addition to all that I have quoted, one 
special source of wealth to be found in the Maritime Pro- 
vinces, which was not in any detail exhibited by rny hon. 
friends — I allude to the important article of coal. I think 
there can be no doubt that, in some parts of Canada, we 
are fast passing out of the era of wood as fuel, and entering 
on that of coal. In my own city every year, there is great 
suffering among the poor from the enormous price of fuel, 
and large sums are paid away by national societies and 
benevolent individuals, to prevent whole families perishing 
for want of fuel. I believe we must all concur with Sir 
William Logan, that we have no coal in Canada, and I 
may venture to state, on my own authority, another fact, 
that we have — a five months' winter, generally very cold. 
Now, what are the coal resources of our maritime friends, 
to whose mines Confederation would give us free and un- 
taxed access for ever? I take these data from the 
authority in my hand — from the highest authority on the 
subject— Taylor's " Coal Fields of the New World :"-— 

" Dr. A. Gesner, in a communication to the Geological 
Society of London, 1843, states that the area of the coal 
fields of New Brunswick has been recently determined to 
be 7,500 square miles ; and 10,000 square miles, including 
Nova Scotia., but exclusive of Cape Breton. Since his first 
report he has explored the whole of this vast region, and 
has found the area covered by that coal formation to be no 
less than 8,000 square miles in New Brunswick. He says 
the most productive coal beds prevail in the interior, while 
those of Nova Scotia occur on the shores of her bays and 
river, where they offer every advantage for mining opera- 
tions. The coal fields of the two provinces are united at 
the boundary line, and belong to the carboniferous period. 
The developments of almost every season illustrate more 
clearly- the magnitude of these coal fields, which extend 
from Newfoundland by Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, 
Nova Scotia, and across a large portion of New Brunswick 
into the State of Maine. Mr. Henwood, a geologist of high 
standing, observes that the beauty and extent of these coal 
treasures it is impossible to describe. In Nova Scotia, 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 297 

Dr. Gesner's statements exhibit an area of coal formation 
of 2,500 square miles, while Messrs. Logan, Dawson, and 
Brown greatly exceed even that. area. Sir W. E. Logan 
demonstrated by a laborious survey the thickness or depth 
of the whole group in Northern Nova Scotia to be over 2| 
miles, an amount which far exceeds anything seen in the 
coal formation in other parts of North America ; in this 
group there are seventy-six coal beds one above the other." 
I must say, Sir, that this is a cheering statement of facts, 
coming to us on the very highest authority, and I feel 
warming with the subject, even while making the state- 
ment. (Laughter.) These exhaustless coal fields will, 
under our plan — which is in fact our Eeciprocity Treaty 
with the Lower Provinces — become, hereafter, the great 
resource of our towns for fuel. I see the cry is raised 
below by the anti- unionists, that to proceed with Confedera- 
tion would be to entail the loss of the New England market 
for their coals. I do not quite see how they make this 
out, but even an anti-unionist might see that the population 
of Canada is within a fraction of that of all JN ] ew England 
put together, that we consume in this country as 
much fuel per annum as they do in New England ; and, 
therefore, that we offer them a market under the anion 
equal to that which these theorizers want to persuade their 
followers they would lose. (Hear, hear.) Sir, another cry 
raised by the anti-unionists below is, that they would have 
to fight for the defence of Canada — a very specious argu- 
ment. What, Sir, three millions and one million unite, 
and the one million do the fighting for all ! In proportion 
to their numbers no doubt these valiant gentlemen will 
have to fight, if fighting is to be done, but not one man or 
one shilling more than Canada, pro rata, will they have to 
risk or spend. On the contrary, the greater community, if 
she should not happen to be first attacked, would be 
obliged to fight for them, and in doing so, I do not hesitate 
to say, on far better authority than my own, that the man 
who fights for the valley and harbour of St. John, or even 
for Halifax, fights for Canada. I will suppose another not 
impossible case. I will suppose a hostile American army. 



298 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

on a fishery or any other war, finding it easier and cheaper 
to seize the lower colonies by land than by sea, by a march 
from a convenient rendezvous on Lake Cham plain, through 
Lower Canada, into the upper part of New Brunswick, and 
so downward to the sea — a march like Sherman's march 
from Knoxville to Savannah. While we obstructed such a 
march by every means in our power, from the Richelieu to 
Riviere du Loup, whose battles would we be fighting then ? 
Why, the seaports aimed at, for our common subjugation. 
(Hear, hear.) But the truth is, all these selfish views and 
arguments are remarkably short-sighted, unworthy of the 
subject, and unworthy even of those who use them. In a 
commercial, in a military, in every point of view, we are all, 
rightly considered, dependent on each other. Newfound- 
land dominates the Gulf, and none of us can afford to be 
separated from her. Lord Chatham said he would as soon 
abandon Plymouth as Newfoundland to a foreign power, 
and he is thought to have understood how to govern men. 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are Siamese twins, held 
together by that ligature of land between Baie Yerte and 
Cumberland Basin, and the fate of the one must follow the 
fate of the other. (Hear, hear.) Prince Edward is only a 
little bit, broken off by the Northumberland Strait from 
those two bigger brethren, and Upper and Lower Canada 
are essential to each other's prosperity. Our very physical 
outline teaches us the lesson of union, and indicates how 
many mutual advantages we may all derive from the treaty 
we have made. Mr. Speaker, while we in Canada have no 
doubt of the ratification of the Intercolonial Treaty, by this 
House and country, I cannot conceal from myself that our 
friends in the Lower Provinces are fighting a battle with 
narrow views and vested interests, which are always most 
bitter in the smallest communities. There are coasting 
trade interests and railway interests at work ; and there are 
the strong interests of honest ignorance and dishonest in- 
genuity.* What can these men mean, who are no fools ? 

* Events Lave since confirmed this prediction ; but I see no reason to 
despair of all the Maritime Provinces yet coming freely into the proposed 
confederation, or some similar political union. 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 299 

Do they, too, fancy they can get a Government made to 
their own private order ? Do they think they can go on 
on the old system ? Do they mean to give up the country 
to the Americans ? Why not hang up at once the sign, 
" These Provinces for sale — terms cash ! — ' greenbacks ' 
taken at par value \" I rejoice to see the unionists of the 
Maritime Provinces so resolved, so high-spirited, and so 
united — and though their victory will not be won without 
w r ork, yet I feel assured it will be a victory. If the honest 
and misguided would but reflect for a moment the risks 
they run by defeating, or even delaying this measure, I am 
sure they would, even yet, retract. (Hear, hear.) If we 
reject it now, is there any human probability that we shall 
ever see again so propitious a set of circumstances to bring 
about the same results? How they came about we all 
know. (Hear, hear.) The strange and fortunate events 
that have occurred in Canada; the extraordinary conces- 
sions made by the leaders of the Governments below — Dr. 
Tupper, the Nova Scotian Premier, for instance, admitting 
to his confidence, and bringing with him here as his co- 
representatives, Hon. Messrs. Archibald and McCully, two 
of his most determined political opponents — can we ever 
expect, if we reject this scheme, that the same or similar 
things will occur again to favour it? Can we expect to see 
the leader of the Upper Canadian conservative party and 
the leader of the Upper Canadian liberals sitting side by 
side again, if this project fails to work out, in a spirit of 
mutual compromise and concession, the problem of our 
constitutional difficulties ? No, Sir, it is too much to 
expect. Miracles would cease to be miracles if they were 
events of every-day occurrence; the very nature of won- 
ders requires that they should be rare ; and this is a mira- 
culous and wonderful circumstance, that men at the head 
of the Governments in five separate Provinces, and men at 
the head of the parties opposing them, all agreed at the 
same time to sink party differences for the good of all, and 
did not shrink, at the risk of having their motives mis- 
understood, from associating together for the purpose of 
bringing about this result. (Cheers.) I have asked, Sir, 



300 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

what risks do we run if we reject this measure ? We run 
the risk of being swallowed up by the spirit of universal 
democracy that prevails in the United States. Their usual 
and favourite motto is — 

No pent-up Utica contracts onr powers, 
But the whole boundless continent is ours. 

That is the popular paraphrase of the Monroe doctrine. 
And the popular voice has favoured — aye, and the greatest 
statesmen among them have looked upon it as inevitable — 
an extension of the principles of democracy over this con- 
tinent. Now, I suppose a universal democracy is no more 
acceptable to us than a universal monarchy in Europe 
would have been to our ancestors ; yet for three centuries 
— from Charles Y. to Napoleon — our fathers combated to 
the death against the subjugation of all Europe to a single 
system or a single master, and heaped up a debt which has 
since burthened the producing classes of the empire with an 
enormous load of taxation, which, perhaps, none other 
except the hardy and ever-growing industry of those little 
islands could have borne up under. (Hear, hear.) The 
idea of a universal democracy in America is no more wel- 
come to the minds of thoughtful men among us than w r as 
that of a universal monarchy to the minds of the thought- 
ful men who followed the standard of the third William, or 
who afterwards, under the great Marlborough, opposed the 
armies of the particular dynasty that sought to place 
Europe under a single dominion. (Hear, hear.) But if 
we are to have a universal democracy on this continent, 
the Lower Provinces — the smaller fragments — will be 
" gobbled up" first, and w r e will come in afterwards 
by way of dessert. (Laughter.) The proposed Confedera- 
tion will enable us to bear up shoulder to shoulder; 
to resist the spread of this universal democracy doctrine ; 
it will make it more desirable to maintain on both 
sides the connection that binds us to the parent State ; it 
will raise us from the position of mere dependent colo- 
nies to a new and more important position ; it will give us 
a new lease of existence under other and more favour- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 301 

able conditions; and resistance to this project, which is 
pregnant with so many advantages to us and to our chil- 
dren, means simply this, ultimate union with the United 
States. (Cheers.) But these are small matters, wholly 
unworthy of the attention of the Smiths, and Annands, and 
Palmers, who have come forward to forbid the banns of 
British- American Union. Mr. Speaker, before I draw to 
a close the little remainder of what I have to say — and I 
am sorry to have detained the House so long — (cries of 
"No, no") — I beg to offer a few observations apropos of 
my own position as an English-speaking member for Lower 
Canada. I venture, in the first place, to observe that there 
seems to be a good deal of exaggeration on the subject of 
race, occasionally introduced, both on the one side and the 
other, in this section of the country. I congratulate my 
honourable friend the Attorney-General for this section on 
his freedom from such prejudices in general, though I still 
think in matters of patronage and the like he always looks 
first to his own compatriots — (laughter)— for which neither 
do I blame him. But this theory of race is sometimes 
carried to an anti- christian and unphilosophical excess. 
Whose words are these — " God hath made of one blood 
all nations that dwell on the face of the earth ? " Is not 
that the true theory of race? For my part, I am not 
afraid of the French Canadian majority in the future local 
Government doing injustice, except accidentally; not be- 
cause 1 am of the same religion as themselves; for origin 
and language are barriers stronger to divide men in this 
world than is religion to unite them. Neither do I believe 
that my Protestant compatriots need have any such fear. 
The French Canadians have never been an intolerant 
people; it is not in their temper, unless they had been 
persecuted, perhaps, and then it might have been as it has 
been with other races of all religions. Perhaps, on this 
subject, the House will allow me to read a very striking 
illustration of the tolerance of French Canadian character 
from a book I hold in my hand, the " Digest of the Synod 
Minutes of the Presbyterian Church of Canada," by my 
worthy friend, the Kev. Mr. Kemp, of the Free Church of 



302 BKITISH-AMEEICAN UNION. 

Montreal. The passage is on page seven of the Intro- 
duction : — 

"About the year 1790 the Presbyterians of Montreal of 
all denominations, both British and American, organised 
themselves into a Church, and in the following year secured 
the services of the Eev. John Young. At this time they 
met in the Eecollet Roman Catholic Church, but in the 
year following they erected the edifice which is now known 
as St. Gabriel Street Church — the oldest Protestant Church 
in the Province. In their early Minutes we find them, in 
acknowledgment of the kindness of the Eecollet Fathers, 
presenting them with ' One box of candles, 561bs., at Sd,, 
and one hogshead of Spanish wine at 6/. 55.' " 
(Laughter.) I beg my hon. friends, who may have different 
notions of Christian intercourse at this time of day, just to 
fancy doings of that sort. (Hear, hear.) Here, on the 
one hand, are the Eecollet Fathers giving up one of their 
own churches to the disciples of John Knox to enable them 
to worship God after their own manner, and perhaps to 
have a gird at Popery in the meantime — (laughter) — and 
here, on the other hand, are the grateful Presbyterians pre- 
senting to these same Seminary priests Presbyterian wine 
and Presbyterian wax tapers in acknowledgment of the use 
of their church for Presbyterian service. Certainly a more 
characteristic instance of tolerance on both sides can hardly 
be found in the history of any other country. I cite this 
little incident to draw from it this practical moral — that 
those who are seeking, and, in some particulars, I believe 
justly seeking, the settlement of Protestant education in 
Lower Canada on firmer ground than it now occupies, 
might well afford to leave the two great Seminaries of 
Montreal and Quebec at peace. No two institutions in 
Christendom ever more conscientiously fulfilled the ends of 
their erection ; and whoever does not know all, but even a 
little, of the good services they have rendered to both the 
people and the Government of Lower Canada, to the civili- 
sation and settlement of this country, has much yet to learn 
of the history of Canada. (Hear, hear.) To close this 
topic, I have no doubt whatever, with a good deal of 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 303 

moderation and a proper degree of firmness, all that the 
Protestant minority in Lower Canada can require, by way 
of security to their educational system, will be cheerfully 
granted to them by this House. I, for one, as a Roman 
Catholic, will cordially second and support any such amend- 
ments, properly framed. I will merely add, in relation to 
an observation of my friend (Hon. Mr. Brown) last night 
on the subject of the Catholic Separate Schools of Upper 
Canada, that I accepted for my own part, as a finality, the 
amended Act of 1863. I said I would do so if it granted 
what the petitioners asked, when, I thought, they ought to 
be satisfied. I will be no party to the re-opening of the 
question; but I say this, that if there are to be any special 
guarantees or grants extended to the Protestant minority of 
Lower Canada, I think the Catholic minority in Upper 
Canada ought to be placed in precisely the same position — 
neither better nor worse. (Hear, hear.) At present I 
shall not add another word on this subject, as I am not 
aware of the particular nature of the amendments asked for 
at present, either east or west. (Hear, hear.) All who 
have spoken on this subject have said a good deal, as was 
natural, of the interests at stake in the success or failure of 
this plan of Confederation. I trust the House will permit 
me to add a few words as to the principle of Confederation 
considered in itself. In the application of this principle 
to former constitutions, there certainly always was one fatal 
defect, the weakness of the central authority. Of all the 
Pederal constitutions I have ever heard or read of, this was 
the fatal malady : they were short-lived, they died of con- 
sumption. (Laughter.) But I am not prepared to say 
that because the Tuscan League elected its chief mams- 
trates but for two months and lasted a century, that there- 
fore the Federal principle failed. On the contrary, there 
is something in the frequent, fond recurrence of mankind 
to this principle, among the freest people, in their best 
times and in their worst dangers, which leads me to believe, 
that it has a very deep hold in human nature itself — an 
excellent basis for a government to have.- But, indeed, 
Sir, the main question is the due distribution of powers in 



304 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

a Federal Union — a question I dare not touch to-night, 
but which I may be prepared to say something on before 
the vote is taken. The principle itself seems to me to be 
capable of being so adapted as to promote internal peace 
and external security, and to call into action a genuine, 
enduring, and heroic patriotism. It is a fruit of this prin- 
ciple that makes the modern Italian look back with sorrow 
and pride over a dreary waste of seven centuries to the 
famous field of Legnano; it was this principle kindled the 
beacons which yet burn on the rocks of Uri ; it was this 
principle that broke the dykes of Holland and overwhelmed 
the Spanish with the fate of the Egyptian oppressor. It 
is a principle capable of inspiring a noble ambition and a 
most salutary emulation. You have sent your young men 
to guard your frontier. You want a principle to guard 
your young men, and thus truly defend your frontier. Tor 
what do good men who make the best soldiers fight ? 
For a line of scripture or chalk line — for a text or for a 
pretext? What is a better boundary between nations than 
a parallel of latitude, or even a natural obstacle? — what 
really keeps nations intact and apart ? — a principle. When 
I can hear our young men say as proudly, " our Federa- 
tion," or " our Country," or " our Kingdom," as the young 
men of other countries do, speaking of their own, then I 
shall have less apprehension for the result of whatever trials 
the future may have in store for us. (Cheers.) It has 
been said that the Federal Constitution of the United 
States has failed. I, Sir, have never said it. The Attorney- 
General West told you the other night that he did not 
consider it a failure; and I remember that in 1861, when 
in this House I remarked the same thing, the only man 
who then applauded the statement was the Attorney -General 
West, — so that it is plain he did not simply adopt 
the argument for use the other night when advocating a 
Federal Union among ourselves. (Hear, hear.) It may 
be a failure for us, paradoxical as this may seem, and yet 
not a failure for them. They have had eighty years' use 
of it, and having discovered its defects, may apply a remedy 
and go on with it eighty years longer. But we also were 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 305 

lookers on, who saw its defects as the machine worked, 
and who have prepared contrivances by which it can be 
improved and kept in more perfect order when applied to 
ourselves. And one of the foremost statesmen in England, 
distinguished alike in politics and literature, has declared, 
as the President of the Council informed us, that we have 
combined the best parts of the British and the American 
systems of government; an opinion deliberately formed 
at a distance, without prejudice, and expressed without 
interested motives of any description. (Hear, hear.) We 
have, in relation to the head of the Government, in 
relation to the judiciary, in relation to the second 
chamber of the Legislature, in relation to the financial 
responsibility of the General Government, and in relation 
to the public officials whose tenure of office is during 
good behaviour instead of at the caprice of a party — 
in all these respects we have adopted the British system ; 
in other respects we have learned something from the 
American system, and I trust and believe we have made 
a very tolerable combination of both. (Hear, hear.) The 
principle of Federation is a generous principle. It is a 
principle that gives men local duties to discharge, and 
invests them at the same time with general supervision, that 
excites a healthy sense of responsibility and comprehension. 
It is a principle that has produced a wise and true spirit of 
statesmanship in all countries in which it has ever been 
applied. It is a principle eminently favourable to liberty, 
because local affairs are left to be dealt with by local bodies, 
and cannot be interfered with by those who have no local 
interest in them, while matters of a general character are 
left exclusively to a General Government. It is a principle 
inseparable from every government that ever gave extended 
and important services to a country, because all govern- 
ments have been more or less confederations in their charac- 
ter. Spain was a Federation, for although it had a king 
reigning over the whole country, it had its local govern- 
ments for the administration of local affairs. The British 
Isles are a quasi Confederation, and the old French duke- 
doms were confederated in the States-General. It is a 



306 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

principle that runs through all the history of civilisation in 
one form or another, and exists alike in monarchies and 
democracies ; and having adopted it as the principle of our 
future government, there were only the details to arrange 
and agree upon. Those details are before you. It is not 
in our power to alter any of them even if the House desires 
it. If the House desires, it can reject the treaty, but we 
cannot, nor can the other Provinces which took part in its 
negotiation, consent that it shall be altered in the slightest 
particular. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to 
have detained the House so long, and was not aware till I 
had been some time on my legs, that my physical strength 
was so inadequate to the exposition of those few points 
which, not specially noticed by my predecessors in this 
debate, I undertook to speak upon. We stand at present 
in this position : we are bound in honour, we are bound in 
good faith, to four Provinces occupied by our fellow colo- 
nists, to carry out the measure of Union agreed upon here 
in the last week of October. We are bound to carry it to 
the foot of the Throne, and ask there from Her Majesty, 
according to the first resolution of the Address, that She 
will be graciously pleased to direct legislation to be had on 
this subject. We go to the Imperial Government, the com- 
mon arbiter of us all, in our true Federal metropolis — we 
go there to ask for our fundamental Charter. We hope, 
by having that Charter, which can only be amended by the 
authority that made it, that we will lay the basis of perma- 
nency for our future government. The two great things 
that all men aim at in free government, are liberty and 
permanency. We have had liberty enough — too much, 
perhaps, in some respects — but, at all events, liberty to our 
hearts' content. There is not on the face of the earth a 
freer people than the inhabitants of these colonies. But it 
is necessary there should be respect for the law, a high 
•central authority, the virtue of civil obedience, obeying the 
law for the law's sake ; for even when a man's private con- 
science may convince him sufficiently that the law in some 
cases may be wrong, he is not to set up his individual will 
against the will of the country expressed through its recog- 



SPEECHES IN CANADIAN PARLIAMENT. 307 

nised constitutional organs. We need in these Provinces, 
and we can bear, a large infusion of authority. I am not 
at all afraid this Constitution errs on the side of too great 
conservatism. If it be found too conservative now, the 
downward tendency in political ideas which characterises 
this democratic age, is a sufficient guarantee for amend- 
ment. Its conservatism is the principle on which this 
instrument is strong, and worthy of the support of every 
colonist, and through which it will secure the warm appro- 
bation of the Imperial authorities. We have here no tra- 
ditions and ancient venerable institutions ; here, there are 
no aristocratic elements hallowed by time or bright deeds ; 
here, every man is the lirst settler of the land, or removed 
from the first settler one or two generations at the farthest ; 
here, we have no architectural monuments calling up old 
associations; here, we have none of those old popular 
legends and stories which in other countries have exercised 
a powerful share in the government; here, every man is 
the son of his own works, (Hear, hear.) We have none 
of those influences about us which, elsewhere, have their 
effect upon government just as much as the invisible atmo- 
sphere itself tends to influence life, and animal and vege- 
table existence. This is a new land — a land of young- 
pretensions because it is new ; because classes and systems 
have not had that time to grow here naturally. We have 
no aristocracy but of virtue and talent, which is the best 
aristocracy, and is the old and true meaning of the term. 
(Hear, hear,) There is a class of men rising in these colo- 
nies, superior in many respects to others with whom they 
might be compared. What I should like to see, is — that 
fair representatives of the Canadian and Acadian aristo- 
cracy should be sent to the foot of the Throne with that 
scheme, to obtain for it the royal sanction — a scheme not 
suggested by others, or imposed upon us, but one the work 
of ourselves, the creation of our own intellect and of our 
own free, unbiassed, and untrammelled will. I should like 
to see our best men go there, and endeavour to have this 
measure carried through the Imperial Parliament — going 
into Her Majesty's presence, and by their manner, if not 






llL 



308 BRITISH-AMERICAN UNION. 

actually by their speech, saying — " During Your Majesty's 
reign we have had .Responsible Government conceded to us : 
we have administered it for nearly a quarter of a century, 
during which we have under it doubled our population, and 
more than quadrupled our trade. The small colonies which 
your ancestors could hardly see on the map, have grown 
into great communities. A great danger has arisen in our 
near neighbourhood. Over our homes a cloud hangs, dark 
and heavy. We do not know when it may burst. With 
our own strength we are not able to combat against the 
storm ; but what we can do, we will do cheerfully and 
loyally. We want time to grow ; we want more people to 
fill our country, more industrious families of men to develop 
our resources ; we want to increase our prosperity ; we 
want more extended trade and commerce ; we want more 
land tilled — more men established through our wastes and 
wildernesses. We of the British North-American Pro- 
vinces want to be joined together, that, if danger comes, we 
can support each other in the day of trial. We come to 
Your Majesty, who have given us liberty, to give us unity, 
that we may preserve and perpetuate our freedom; and 
whatsoever charter, in the wisdom of Your Majesty and of 
Your Parliament, you give us, we shall loyally obey and 
observe as long as it is the pleasure of Your Majesty and 
Your Successors to maintain the connection between Great 
Britain and these Colonies. - " (Loud cheers.) 



THE END. 



BRADTTJRY A>D EVAKS, IRINTELS WIJiTEFF.IAKS. 



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